Spies, Wolves and Scars
by Thirteen Ravens
Summary: A Vampire lurks in this shadowy post OOtP AU fic! Lupin is baffled when Snape is terrified by an April Fool's prank. Why should he get so upset, and why would he tease Harry about there being something wrong with his blood?
1. Portentous Draughts

_Enshroud all then, your darkness and your light. So you choose concealment; it is as much a torment as a power..._

**Chapter One: Portentous Draughts**

Professor Severus Snape was stalking about in a particularly foul mood today. One reason for it may have been the nearing of the O.W.L and N.E.W.T examinations, which meant extra work for all the Professors. But this was not all that was likely to have ignited his infamous temper, and had kept it on simmer all morning.

There were precious few weeks to go before the Summer Holidays, and the cocky students in year seven were getting cockier. Snape had lost his temper multiple times with them for not paying attention, and as punishment all houses were losing points (except for Slytherin, of course) more quickly than they could earn them.

This morning, his black eyes were even more watchful than ever; because the date was April the First.

There was no other date, which bothered him as much. Years of his cold and unfair dealing had made him the prime Professor for targeting, but this didn't make it any easier to fool. This was Snape, after all.

The last pupil to do so had been a very sharp Ravenclaw, who left six years ago. Jester Jakes had apparently managed to sabotage Hogwarts' incoming potion supplies, and slip a bleaching spell into them. The potion had hit the unguarded Potions Master, who, oblivious of his change in appearance had taken his next lesson with his greasy hair bleached yellower than straw. By the end of the morning Snape had been wound up to snarling limit by all the whispers and giggles; until a smirking Slytherin suggested he look in the mirror...

'Not this year,' Snape hissed to himself. 'Not this year...'

Indeed, it turned out that there was only to be one lame attempt at a prank; a Zonko's Snowing Confetti Bomb which hit him in the middle of teaching potions to a year seven Ravenclaw and Hufflepuff class. The spell successfully managed to turn his dungeon into a pink and yellow Santa's Grotto.

After the last flakes of the snowstorm had finished whirling, the dingy place was heaped several feet in paper, and it actually looked quite pretty. There was no appreciation from the owner though. The momentary look of abject horror on his face quickly twisted into a malicious sneer.

After the students had managed to shake all the bits from their hair and had stopped smirking, they appealed innocently to their teacher, who stood rigid, his black eyes gleaming dangerously.

'Your angelic poises won't protect you from punishment,' he began coolly, 'because you have disrupted my lesson, and put your revision behind schedule.'

His eyes began to scan their faces, 'I promise you all now, that I will catch the culprit, or culprits...' he glared at three girls in the corner, who swiftly wiped the smirks off their face, 'by the end of the week. But for now,' he hissed maliciously, 'I think it will be twenty five points from both Hufflepuff, and Ravenclaw!'

The class muttered and exchanged looks.

'Silence!' their teacher snapped. 'You are fortunate I do not have the patience to waste my break-time, or I would have had all of you sweeping out my classroom...the Muggle way...'

That had been his first double lesson.

Now it was mid-morning, Professor Snape felt he could afford to lighten his mood slightly, from malicious to moderately vindictive. Seven whole years of him being constantly on their back, and all they could throw at him were little bits of tissue paper. He actually smirked at the thought of it. If it had been Slytherins, or Gryffindors taking revenge though...

He clicked open the door to the staff room.

Professor Dumbledore was in there, engaged in a serious conversation with Minerva Mcgonagall, and a sandy haired, worried-looking man, wearing a rather shabby cloak.

Snape stopped abruptly, and considered turning back, but they had heard him come in.

'Oh...good morning Severus,' said Lupin, perhaps too cheerfully for Snape's liking.

'Good day, Lupin,' he scowled.

Snape noticed a bemused smirk on the Headmaster's face as he acknowledged the other professors. He stalked past them towards the other end of the room.

'What was Lupin doing in Hogwarts again? He was _supposed_ to be busy with the Order,' he thought. Snape was becoming convinced that continually endangering, rather than protecting the students was Dumbledore's main aim.

'Severus,' came Dumbledore's tone of suppressed amusement. 'You...er...appear to be wearing bits of pink paper...in your hair...'

Snape's face drained of all colour; He had forgotten. Letting out a low hiss, he turned on his heels, and whirled back past the smirking trio. He snatched at the door, and whipped it shut behind him with a loud snap.

Back in the staff room, a bemused Lupin raised his eyebrows. His sensitive hearing was certain it had caught the Potions Master lowly hissing the word '_Freak!_' in his direction.

Once outside, Snape shook his head upside down furiously, until all the offending bits had fluttered to the floor. Glowering, his black robed figure swept closely past groups of students in the corridors, causing a few to quail as his fierce eyes met theirs.

'Lupin; _here_ on Fool's day,' he muttered menacingly to himself while crossing the entrance hall. He was becoming more and more suspicious of everything. Even the nastiest looking gargoyles seemed to shrink back from his stare.

He must avoid opening _anything_ until lunchtime. No vials, bottles, jars or boxes. And, he must be _extra_ vigilant with doors.

Luckily, he had until lunchtime free. He decided to spend this safely shut in his quarters, which were concealed from students; there nobody should be able to disturb him.

He had reached a particularly gloomy torch lit passage.

'_Rigor Mortis...' _he hissed, running his fingers down several stones. With a low rumble the stones parted to reveal a door. He unsealed his door with a quick spell, stood aside, and flung it open.

No tricks here; not even a bewitched bucket of Hogwarts' vanilla custard above the door.

Seeming relieved, Snape peered into the dark chamber before entering cautiously. Nothing looked, sounded, or smelt out of place. The fireplace was barely alight. Greenish torches flamed on the small sections of wall, which weren't covered with bookshelves, or obscured by tall stacks of books. The dungeon ceiling was low and curved, and bewitched blacker than the stormiest night. A dark and musty green arras hid a low, shadowy archway opposite. Beyond this was Snape's sleeping quarters.

Snape swept across to a gnarled wooden desk, and sat himself down on an old chair, which looked as if it was covered with black hair. He picked up his dog-eared volume of _Portentous Draughts and Elixirs._

One wave of his wand, and a plate of what appeared to be dried fruit, appeared beside him. He ate slowly, becoming more and more engrossed in his reading.

A chill wind seemed to curl through the room. Draughts were to be expected in dungeons, and Snape was quite used to them. But today, he was so intent on forgetting the morning through the words on the page, that the fact the draught was some degrees colder than usual seemed to escape even his sharp senses.

Half an hour before lunchtime Snape came out of his trance, and snapped the book shut. He went to sweep across to the door, but a movement the other end of the room caught his eye. The arras.

It was normal for hanging tapestries to sway slightly in the breeze, Snape reasoned. But this one had twitched.

Eyes narrowing, his long nostrils quivering, he bent cautiously down to peer under the tapestry. Something with thin, clawed feet was standing in the dark archway.

Snape reached into his robes, and drew out his wand. He couldn't detect a heartbeat, yet the feet looked somewhat familiar....

'Of course,' he muttered, sourly. They belonged to the werewolf gargoyle that normally stood in the entrance hall.

_So, the 'prankster' had chosen to leave a screamingly obvious calling card._

'Very funny, Lupin!' Snape hissed darkly to himself. 'Your jokes increase in hilarity every year.'

But in reality he _was_ rather amused by it. Compared to the other Fool's days, this one had turned out almost pleasant. He pointed his wand upwards, and muttered a spell to swish the tapestry back.

It wasn't the werewolf gargoyle. Snape's eyes widened as an evil looking, hook-nosed wizard dressed in black met his gaze, and let out a horrible snarl.

Snape jumped back, alarmed, and pointed his wand to strike. The other wizard copied, but Snape thought he was slightly faster.

'STUPEFY!' cried the professor. A bolt shot from his wand straight at the impostor, but just before it reached him it seemed to rebound. It streaked back at Snape, and struck him on the shoulder.

He yelped, and fell backwards, crashing into his desk. As he sat up and found his bearings, something dawned on him. He saw now that the werewolf feet were attached to an ornate ebony framework, which he could now see was encasing a large mirror.

A mirror? Obviously, he had fired at his own reflection. '_How embarrassing,' _he thought. His eyes narrowed irritably as he imagined himself becoming as paranoid as Alastor Moody.

He looked up again in curiosity, staring long and hard; he didn't have a mirror in his room, and had never considered just how sour and unpleasant; repulsive he looked. His hand clenched into a fist.

'What an April Fool, to be reminded just how much I look like my father's side of the family!' thought Snape, scowling murderously. 'Yes, people _must_ pay for this...'

He glanced at the mirror again, and started. The whole reflection had tinged a sickly yellow, and so had his reflection. A thick, red liquid had begun to seep out the wood at the top of the frame, and was now dripping in fast streaks down the mirror.

When the whole background had turned bloody, Snape saw his reflection smirk evilly and point a wand at him.

'Why, hello again, Severus,' it sneered coolly. 'I must thank the werewolf for installing me into your dungeon. Nice little April Fool prank if you ask me. Those Marauders certainly knew a lot about the secret rooms at Hogwarts, didn't they?'

Any pupil who knew Snape would have been visibly shocked to witness it; but at the sound of this voice their professor's whole body had visibly shivered from head to toe.

It could not be. He had _burnt_ all the family possessions...

'Turned out a bit wrong, haven't you, Severus?' the portrait remarked venomously. 'It's true, you do look like the real thing now. But-'

'Desmodus, please...' said Snape in a horrified whisper, his pale skin actually beginning to tinge green.

'Yes: Desmodus!' the portrait spat. 'The only other Snape to flit around the corridors of Hogwarts!'

Severus Snape was looking peakier by the minute. To see him being berated by his most cruel relative was certainly something the Marauders would have found rather amusing to watch.

It was a particularly nasty surprise for him, though. While he had taken great care to destroy everything in the family house, he had never managed to comb all of Hogwarts. Desmodus Snape was an Old School Slytherin through and through, and was certainly sly enough to creep about undetected.

The portrait looked around the room, wrinkling his beakish nose distastefully.

'Must I remind you your father held his very own castle at your age?' he drawled.

Snape's stood mute, his dark eyes boring coldly into the canvas.

'Mind you, you never really had his potential, did you? Or any potential, for that matter,' it mocked. 'Still teaching Potions, boy? What sort of vocation is that for a Snape!'

'My Vocation!' Snape spat back savagely. His eyes darted around the room. He was trying to think of a powerful enough spell to incinerate the picture in one go.

'And then,' he drawled, 'your persistent drive to cremate the lot of us, and pretend we never existed. Perfect preparation for the Defence Against the Dark Arts position, perchance?'

Snape could only glare murderously.

Desmodus took this as an affirmation, and curled his mouth into a triumphant sneer.

'Plotting against me, Severus? How very un-Snapish to betray your own blood! Why...if I were more than a picture - I would come over there right now, and _kiss_ you...'

Snape pointed his eyes at the floor, seething. Did he even store a strong enough fire potion that would work against this?

'Oh - I'm not flammable,' Desmodus said silkily, seeming to guess what Snape was thinking. 'Dear, dear, and I thought you, of all people, would know that I took care to protect my portraits from such attacks.'

Snape shifted uneasily, this was very bad news. Desmodus when alive had indeed placed the complex anti-inferno charm upon himself. What better protection for a portrait, also?

And for just how long had he been creeping around the pictures of Hogwarts, keeping those chill, glinting eyes on his last descendant?

'And, I had a few other plans when modifying my portraits,' the voice continued smoothly. 'Plans which would give me more control over my family members, after my death.'

Snape braced himself for the worst. Gloating before a victory was another unfortunate habit of his family.

The portrait continued in a softer and more deadly tone. 'Control over family members...who somehow manage to trick their elders into thinking they were, what all along they were not.'

Snape paled again, Desmodus _knew_.

'It's Lupin's fault!' he thought savagely. But no...it was his. He was sharp, and should have predicted this, found and weighted the thing down years ago, and sunk it into the deepest gully of the Atlantic.

Because the last time he had seen Desmodus alive, was at the beginning of his Death Eater years, when he had been as impressively unpleasant as any Snape had ever aspired to be.

The blood was still oozing from the picture frame, dripping onto the floor and staining the stone black. His deception had finally seeped out.

Right from the beginning Snape had known that he mustn't go near the portrait. But now he had decided that Remus Lupin should.

'Incisia may have found out, and overlooked your little deficiency,' hissed the portrait viciously. 'But her _motherly love_, kept it from me!'

His face contorting at the mention of his mother, Severus Snape whirled about and grabbed his pot of Floo powder. He wrenched open the lid, and slung a handful of the contents into the fireplace.

'LUPIN!!' he screeched madly as the embers flared up. A few seconds later the man himself, appeared.

'You hollered, Professor Snape?' he enquired, frowning slightly while clambering out, and dusting off the ash. He glanced around looking surprised. 'I've never been invited into your private quarters before. An urgent matter, is it?'

'Yes!' spat Snape. 'You have _never_ been invited! So, pray explain the meaning of..._THIS?!'_

'Well,' muttered Lupin. He frowned, and looked in the direction the maddened Snape had jabbed his wand. He noticed the growing pool of blood on the floor, and then the arras, raised and floating in the air. Finally, looking calmly from the sneering portrait, to the sneering look-alike next to him, and back again, he raised a quizzical eyebrow. 'It appears to mean, pardon me for saying; that you are having a little family reunion?'

'And _you,_ Lupin,' howled Snape, 'were the organiser of it!'

'Tut, tut Severus,' said the portrait dangerously. 'You certainly know how to make your guests feel unwanted.' Desmodus then turned his contemptuous gaze on Lupin. 'As much as it pains me to, I must take the opportunity to thank you, werewolf, for helping to arrange this little scenario.'

'But why do you trust him, and accuse me Severus?' Lupin remonstrated, 'You know I have never played any trick on you...er...intentionally. And...I would especially avoid anything as cruel as this!' As Snape's eyes began to narrow, he added more quietly trying not to wince, 'You know, if he was still with us...this would have been more Sirius's taste...'

A crease appeared between his eyebrows, but Snape stayed quiet. Sirius Black was a subject, which had become completely taboo since last Summer.

'Ah...the Black family,' mused Desmodus, his tone dripping with sarcasm. 'They were worthy rivals indeed. Some of them...'

'Lupin,' muttered Snape, in as polite a tone as he could manage. 'I would like you to help me with something.' Ignoring the eyebrow, which had raised again at the word, _help,_ he continued in a lower tone so the portrait couldn't hear. 'You are the only one in Hogwarts who can touch..._it_.'

'You mean,' whispered back Lupin. 'Old Des here?'

Snape nodded sourly, Lupin paused to think.

'Well,' he mused. 'I was the only one of the Marauders who could, and the others could never figure out why.'

'What are you up to, young Werewolf?' came the portrait's icy voice.

Lupin thought it was uncanny how much Snape sounded like him.

'So, Lupin, you're admitting that you, and your...associates, have _known_ about this portrait, all these years?' hissed Snape, his temper climbing again. 'And you think it is still amusing to see me suffer, do you? More amusing, perhaps, than making allusive hints in front of _certain_ students?'

'Oh, did he really?' cut in Desmodus, sounding rather amused. 'Good to hear it! This boy must be reminded of his bloodline.'

Snape shot the darkest look yet at his leering relative, before turning on Lupin again.

'This portrait only encouraged Potter to pick on me more viciously, _didn't it?'_ he hissed at him through gritted teeth. Snape's jaw had gone rigid with anger.

Lupin remained silent; he wasn't proud that he knew this, but what was done, was done.

'Well, I'm sure it wasn't that bad, Severus,' sneered his grandfather coldly. 'You should be thankful that he bothered to notice you at all. You are a freakish anomaly, a bane to the family; you should never have _existed_.'

Lupin watched Snape's face contort still more with fury. It appeared that the Marauders aside, Snape's deepest and purest hate, was his very own blood.

Lupin had often felt it gnaw at his stomach often, the guilty reality of the past. 'Snape had been such a class 'A' git at school,' he thought gloomily. But, to his credit, compared to the creature in the portrait anyway, he had turned out slightly better...

'Only Incisia's magic stood in my way, Severus,' the portrait sneered dangerously. 'I would have had you...if I could!'

Snape stopped still, as if something had just occurred to him. His face blanched.

'Lupin,' he said hurriedly, 'cover the portrait now! Please...?'

Lupin was confused, the wolf in him could smell _real_ fear. He looked incredulously at the shivering Potions Master.

'I can't deal with this! Not any more!'

There was a long silence, in which the pale-faced Severus had to lean on the back of his chair. Desmodus Snape continued to gaze at him intently, wearing a calculating and cruel expression.

Lupin looked from the portrait to the descendant in disbelief. He had never seen them together before, but had expected Snapish bickering, not a disturbing power struggle. Surely the canvas hadn't won?

'Lupin,' came Severus's voice again, more urgently. 'Cover and move him!'

Lupin made his decision. He crossed the room swiftly, removing his cloak, and reached up to drape it over the picture.

Instead he found both hands clamping themselves tightly either side of the frame, he was being compelled to by a very strong, dark force.

The full fury of the wolf snarled up in him. The blood red of the picture tinted redder as his eyes changed, and a deep rumbling growl began forcing itself from his throat. Dark hairs were beginning to sprout on his hands.

'Severus!' he howled horribly. 'Don't let him do this!'

'Calm down!' urged Snape. 'And try to move it!'

But Lupin didn't seem to have heard. Growling lowly, with wild eyes, his lips pressed back, Lupin was struggling against the urge to rip at the canvas, to tear the face glaring at him, to bite through the blood...


	2. A Kind of Peace

Snape had kept his distance, his eyes darting. He watched curiously as the wolf in Lupin struggled against the powers his grandfather had channelled into his last surviving portrait.

Then it happened; Severus's very worst suspicions came true.

The portrait bulged. A lump was forcing itself out from the red, dripping canvas. It was shaped like a fist at first, just at Lupin's eye level, but then it furrowed into a terrible, bloodied face, its jaws stretching open.

Snape backed off, pointing his wand as Desmodus' head broke out through the red screen. Lupin gave out an alarmed snort as the face, pale as Severus's, but sharper and deeply ridged, lunged predator-like at his neck. Lupin snatched back at him with bared teeth, yelping loudly. Growling, he shot a furious look at Snape. _It wasn't working._

Snape swept forward and dragged the wolf off the canvas. Desmodus hissed angrily as Lupin collapsed to the floor, chest heaving, his mouth still pulled back in a defensive snarl.

'That, Severus, was meant to be for you!' spat the portrait furiously.

'It...has...no effect,' panted Lupin, wincing. 'Now...just...need to...calm...wolf...'

'Yes, yes, one curse of the blood cannot override another, I know!' snapped Desmodus savagely, his eyes flashing. 'But, I just couldn't let, a _sleeping dog_ lie...'

Snape lowered himself into his chair. He was eerily silent, and the glittering in his eyes had dulled somewhat. He had never escaped the first of April unhumiliated, ever. First his family, then the Marauders, then his pupils. Now everything had come full circle, on the same morning.

He looked up to find a calculating Desmodus eyeing him.

'Now - Severus,' whispered the portrait softly. 'As that little confrontation has quietened you down a bit, I think it is about time we should smooth out the little animosities, become known to one another again, find and know a new peace.'

Snape's eyes seemed to flash at the last word. He stood up.

'But I am the _little animosity_, aren't I, grandfather?' he spat back viciously. 'The only living Snape pureblood who wasn't cursed with your legacy. Your 'peace' will always be disgusting to me!'

These sudden, angry words made a chill run down Lupin's back. _Legacy?_ Would this explain why this Slytherin was so unlike others in his house in choosing to keep quiet about pureblood Heraldry? Snape was an old and respected pureblood name, so no one ever questioned its wizarding purity. And if no one ever questioned it, then no one would know it had been tainted by another sort of ancient bloodline...

Snape caught the curious look on Lupin's face. Instantly his guard was up.

'Yet another cumbersome secret we now seem to share Lupin,' he hissed maliciously. "And all because parents don't like_ dangerous people _instructing theirstudents...' A cruel sneer began to curl the corners of his mouth. 'I think it was only fair for you to get a little...beaten about...for discovering my burden. Considering, of course, that when I found out yours, you nearly tore my leg off with your rabid teeth!'

'Well, well Severus!' chipped in the portrait, smirking. 'At least you can hold the bitter grudges as proudly as any Snape! However,' he continued more threateningly, 'the scathing disrespect for your great grandmother has killed any short-lived pride I might feel for you!'

Lupin sighed wearily as the proximity of two Snapes took its toll on his patience. He decided to chance a comment.

'Severus, surely it has come to the point that we should stop the battle, agree to a truce?' Lupin wheezed hoarsely, trying to sit up.

'Submission? From a wolf?' cried Desmodus, smirking incredulously. 'Oh, I am entertained. Now if _only_ that had happened in my lifetime, eh, Severus?'

Severus, it appeared, didn't fancy answering either comment. His expression was unreadable. Desmodus' eyes narrowed, and the skin on his forehead began to ridge up again in mounting fury.

'Is _this_ the future of the bloodlines? The impotency and inferiority that is slouched before me?!' he spluttered angrily. His pale fingers flexed, as if he felt like throttling something.

Snape stared back up into Desmodus's eyes. Now he could hear his grandfather's voice whispering in his head.

_'Blood, the reason there is life. If you won't heed me, listen to it! Listen to its whispers, unlike hearts and minds, Severus, the blood never lies...Despatch the wolf, and give up the deceit...'_

Snape broke eye contact. Desmodus was right, that inner feeling that knew no reasons or boundaries, and never lied, was the blood, and Desmodus willed him to submit to it.

He _hated_ wolves; that was undeniably true. But deeper than that, ran the boiling wrath for his family line, the vileness, which was stamped on him at birth, and forever marked him by name. But he knew full well that to reject it all was to suffer continually. He could gain this 'peace' now, if he just allowed himself to be bitten...

White lipped, Snape stared at his grandfather, whose face was still transformed and pale. Then he glanced at Lupin crumpled weakly on the floor, the yellow tinge still fading from his eyes.

Not taking his eyes off of Lupin, Snape spoke in a barely audible whisper. 'My blood has already decided, Desmodus.'

There was a silence, wherein the elder's face smoothed to more human features, and smirked. Snape began to glance around the room.

'Well?' the portrait purred expectantly.

'I was always in awe of your resourcefulness, Desmodus,' said Snape suddenly, his mouth spreading into a thin smile. 'I've often considered having a portrait done. If I prove my allegiance, maybe you could tell me how you managed to work the anti-inferno charm into yours?'

The portrait eyed his grandson intently, as if it was unsure whether to trust him or not. He must have liked what he found, though, as he returned a lop-sided grin.

Lupin shot an alarmed look at both of them; to watch Snape smile was very unnerving. To watch two hinted at a conspiracy.

Cautiously, Snape stretched out his arm onto the desk behind him, and began to feel for something with his fingers.

Lupin went deadly pale, he had seen a silver letter opener lying on Snape's desk when he came in. The Potions Master carried it about with him, and always made a perverse effort to open his post with it in the Werewolf's presence.

Desmodus' eyes glinted. Snape's fingers had stopped searching, and his cold, emotionless eyes had come to rest on Lupin's face.

It happened extremely quickly. As Snape whirled himself backwards over the desk, and grabbed at something on the wall, Lupin growled, shot back to the fireplace, and was gone in a roar of green flame.

But Snape had hardly noticed where Lupin had gone, the burning torch he had pulled from its holder was already pointing threateningly at the picture frame.

'YOU CHOOSE TO BETRAY YOUR OWN BLOOD!?' the portrait shrieked, fangs fully bared, its mad, black eyes flashing.

'You are quite wrong,' said Snape coolly. 'I am heeding it, and have always heeded it. All those strange, freakish, anomalous, _halfbreed_ whispers...'

Desmodus's snarl at this word was cut short as his grandson thrust the flames closer to the canvas. Severus's eyes gleamed madly. 'I am merely itching to know, grandfather, whether your little anti-inferno charm is one big lie. I think that fire in this case, will prove the perfect lie detector.'

'Take that thing away from my face, or I will flee this frame, and you will never find me again!' Desmodus warned, his voice quavering shrilly.

'Feeling a bit hot under the lacquer, Desmodus?' came the amused tone of Albus Dumbledore from behind.

Snape merely twitched with irritation, and narrowed his eyes. _This was his argument!_

'I am actually, Professor Dumbledore,' replied Desmodus smoothly, trying to look as if he wasn't too rattled by the sudden intrusion. 'So, could you please tell the pyromaniac to point his torch away from my general direction?'

'Severus, please DO continue to point the torch in Desmodus' general direction,' instructed Dumbledore coolly.

_'Of course, _Headmaster

Desmodus managed a half-hearted sneer at both of them, and then spat bitterly into the portrait's foreground.

Dumbledore smiled at the picture. 'It has been some time since we met, has it not, Desmodus? I had an inkling a picture or two of yours may have survived Severus's onslaught.'

'_Simply marvellous_!' thought Snape, his eyes now slits. 'The Headmaster of Hogwarts, knowing anything and everything, as per usual.'

'In fact I do recognise that frame. If I am not mistaken it belonged to an old mirror, which used to stand in one of the North Tower classrooms long, long ago...'

'It was a mirror, until I came to Hogwarts, Dumbledore!' sneered the picture. 'Now, if you'll excuse me...'

The figure in the picture made a sudden abrupt movement, and dashed to the edge of the frame, black cape flying out behind him. Snape thrust the torch at the canvas. Suddenly, the flame extinguished itself with a loud hiss. Snape scowled, the anti inferno charm had been more than a gloat, after all.

There was a sudden yelp of surprise, and pain. Snape's eyes darted to the edge of the frame; Desmodus had tried to exit the canvas, but had collided with an invisible wall. He got up and ran to the other edge. His eyes grew wider; this side too, was barred. He clawed his black hair back with a snarl.

'Would you like to keep him, Severus?' enquired Dumbledore with a slight smile. He had more than a faint idea of the reaction.

If looks had the ability to kill, both Desmodus and Severus Snape's would have struck the Headmaster stone dead. But Dumbledore's eyes continued to twinkle with amusement.

'Dear, dear,' he thought, 'a double helping of Snape family affability. Both in black, the same scowls too: Dare I make a comment on how alike they are?'

'He bites, Headmaster,' Snape muttered coldly.

'Bites?' Dumbledore frowned, seeming surprised for a moment. Then his eyes twinkled. 'Ah - I see !' he chuckled to himself.

Snape watched Dumbledore's change of expression with contempt. Of course he would smile at this. He could always make a joke out of anything. Well then, he could give him humour...

'As much as I revere the pleasure of indulging in nostalgia, Headmaster,' muttered Snape softly. 'I must, _point,_ out that I would hardly consider it a, _sharp move,_ to leave my old bat of a relative, _hanging around_, with his taste in food -'

'More than enough subtlety, Severus,' cut in Dumbledore brusquely. 'I am very sorry, but I have become so used to your...er...own mannerisms, that...'

The Potions Master stiffened. The old wizard wasn't smiling anymore, but Snape was certain that slight twinkle in his eyes continued to mock him. His dark eyes gleamed -'

There was a sudden whooshing noise and an explosion of ash from the fireplace. A person crawled awkwardly out of it, coughing, and wheezing.

'You - again!' spat Desmodus. He had given up trying to escape his frame, and had sat down.

Snape's left eye twitched. Setting aside the fact that he was, of course, completely covered with a film of pungent ash, three of life's four greatest irritations were now cluttering up _his_ quarters, all of them without so much as an invitation. Only Potter left to complete the set.

Lupin straightened up, and gently held out a book to Snape, who lowered an eyebrow.

'Anti-inferno charms and counter charms, Professor,' he explained. As Snape snatched the volume off him, Lupin reached into his cloak, and held out another piece of parchment, tentatively. 'And this, Severus, is a means where I can offer you a valuable service. If you'll allow me to,' he added quietly.

Snape's eyes narrowed suspiciously at the scroll, as if it was yet another Marauder trick.

Lupin sighed. 'The others saw the portrait, Severus, but they never suspected Desmodus was anything...other, than a dark wizard. I could...sense it, of course. But I never ever told them. Never could tell anyone. You will understand why, I hope?' he trailed off.

Snape stared searchingly at the other man in silence, black eyes unreadable, his lip beginning to curl.

'What exactly is the meaning of this?' he hissed.

'It's past midday, Severus,' said Dumbledore softly.

Snape's curiosity got the better of him. He reached out cautiously and took the parchment. He opened it at arms length, throwing wary glances up at Lupin, and only moved it closer to read when he was sure it hadn't been tampered with. He arched one eyebrow once or twice as he read, but didn't sneer. The others watched him, apprehensively.

'Doing deals with Werewolves now, Severus?' came a mocking voice from across the room.

Still reading the scroll, Snape reached inside his robes for his wand, pointed it lazily over his shoulder and flicked it once, making the arras flop back down over the portrait in a dusty cloud.


	3. An Eerie Evening

Dreading yet another Occlumency session with his favourite teacher, Professor Snape, a gloomy Harry Potter dragged his feet all the way down through the dungeon corridors.

From the first day of the new school year, Dumbledore - for reasons unknown - had been resolutely determined that Snape should continue to instruct Harry. The headmaster began to realise he had underestimated the mutual loathing, however, when four long months later, his polite, eye twinkling negotiations were still ending in deadly silences, and stubborn hostility. It was only then, that he needed to resort to more sympathetic means_. (Or did he mean Slytherin means?_)

Calling them both to his office one morning after Christmas, he casually let blue sparks fly, and warned both of them that if they didn't continue with the lessons, he would recommend in a staff meeting that it be made an obligatory Hogwarts' rule that the Potion Master of aforementioned school take on a Sixth Year _apprentice_ to help him brew Hospital Wing potion stocks at weekends.

Even patient, wise, twinkly, lemon-drop loving wizards can only stand so much.

Harry was still pretty shell-shocked from last July, though, when his O.W.L results letter arrived when he was at the Weasleys. It had congratulated him not only for his 'O' for Defence Against the Dark Arts, but also for his 'O' in Potions.

'Wow! But also...gutted,' Ron had gasped, his face showing a mixed look of admiration and complete horror when he had told him. He had then owled Hermione, and she seemed convinced that Dumbledore must have had something to do with it.

Harry agreed with her, because Snape had made his feelings about it known all too clearly from the first day of term. Ron had even watched Snape out of the corner of his eye during the Sorting Ceremony, and he was sure he had given Harry at least twelve, 'I-hate-you-Potter,' death glares.

Not only did this mean more of the Potion Master's torture, but it also meant less Ron. He had not got a high enough grade. Not that Ron was at all sorry. He had leapt around the house whooping excitedly, sending Pigwidgeon into yet another mad, twittering frenzy, until Mrs Weasley had screamed at him, of course, and shooed the owl outside.

In the very first Occlumency session, on a chill, bleak January evening over two months ago now, Snape had been unusually short of sarcastic remarks, but the frequency of murderous looks more than compensated for them. The icy glare he had given Harry as he sealed the pensieve in his storeroom in particular had made his skin creep all over. Snape actually hadn't managed to frighten him for years, but he was succeeding now.

Like the year five lessons, these ones were also slow going, as Snape's new iciness was proving as much a discouragement as his temper. Harry was managing to block Snape's intrusion more often, but he had only managed to completely reverse the spell once, and only very briefly. He had managed to see just one more memory, before the Professor had sent him crashing into the shelves again.

'And what reward for all the effort?' Harry thought, shivering. If he had half a choice, he would have preferred, 'Five points from Gryffindor!' This memory of Snape's seemed different from the others, and had actually been haunting him quite badly that week.

He felt himself lying on the floor in a very gloomy room. He could only just make out the silhouettes of two other people. One silhouette seemed to be slowly creeping up behind the other. Then the memory would go black, and a sound, which froze every one of Harry's nerves with a thrill of pure terror, would fill his head.

It was like a Crucio scream, but longer, and it was all the more chilling, because it stopped, very suddenly...

As the hairs on the back of his neck began to stick on end, Harry tried to squash the memory back again. It was quickly replaced by amusing mental images of Ravenclaw's recent April fool prank on Snape. Harry smirked, he would have liked to have seen that, (maybe when he could master this mind reading) and especially Snape with bits of confetti in his hair.

But it was hardly wise to walk in Snape's office looking amused, so Harry squashed that thought as well, and with a straight face he rapped on the door.

'Enter,' came the usual voice. Harry pulled up the catch and the door creaked open.

'Hello Harry!' said a familiar voice through the gloom. Harry did a double take.

Remus Lupin was relaxed on the spare chair in Snape's office. He held a cup and saucer in his hand. Snape sat calmly his side of the desk, idly twisting a quill in his pale fingers. When the Potions' Master saw the priceless look on the Gryffindor's face, he couldn't hold back a nasty smirk. This was even more fun than taking points off the boy.

'Ah...Potter,' he said coolly, 'I was just telling Remus here how lazy you are when it comes to learning Occlumency...'

'Harry,' added Lupin gently, setting down his cup, 'you really must make these sessions a priority of yours.'

Harry seemed lost for words. His green eyes travelled from the smirking Snape to the serious looking Lupin. _Having a cup of tea with Snape?_ It _had_ to be the Imperious.

'The only type of curse at work in this room, Potter, is one of the blood,' Snape sneered coldly, as Harry's stare pierced suspiciously into him.

'Severus,' interjected Lupin, sending a frown in his direction. He turned his eyes to Harry, who was still staring accusingly at Snape. 'I am sorry to tell you, Harry, but that was a truthful comment.' This time Harry looked at Lupin as if he had been betrayed.

'If someone attempted to control me by curse, the wolf in me would rise up and win,' Lupin explained firmly.

'But...' Harry wasn't sure if this knowledge made him feel any better. Lupin smiled apologetically at him.

Harry couldn't guess the cause of the odd glittering, which had appeared in Snape's black eyes.

'I'm much grieved that nobody told you, Potter,' he said smoothly, 'that your ability to throw off mind control may well mean that there is something..._wrong... _with your blood...'

Lupin gave Snape a wry smile. 'Thank goodness you never became a healer, Severus, your bedside manner would hardly encourage optimism.'

'Luckily for the patients, you know, Remus, the circumstances of my birth immediately ruled out that particular career choice.'

_'Remus?'_ thought Harry wildly. "What happened to, '_The Werewolf?"_

Harry began to think about his blood. He didn't like Snape's new joke. Having Voldemort messing with your mind was bad enough! Both adults, Harry noticed, were watching him with curiosity, Snape still twisting the feather, and smiling very oddly.

It made him think of the creepy feeling he always got in the Forbidden Forest. Unnerved, Harry made a mental note to tell Hermione about it when he got back to the common room.

'Enough idle chit-chat!' sneered the Potions Master, standing suddenly. Remus moved his chair into a corner as Snape put down the quill and picked up his wand. 'Wand out, Potter.'

Snape saw Harry glance oddly at the spectator.

'Ah...' he smirked, raising an eyebrow. 'Mr. Lupin will be staying here as moral support.'

Harry crossed nervously to the centre of the room. 'Whose moral support?' he wondered, feeling a chill run through him as Snape raised his wand.

* * *

'Something _wrong_ with your blood? What's that supposed to mean!' said Ron disbelievingly. 'You don't believe that rubbish, do you Harry?' Ron slapped his friend encouragingly on the back. 'Don't worry, mate - it came from Greasy Git's mouth!'

'Yeah, but Lupin agreed with him,' said Harry, stabbing moodily at his peas. It was dinner in the Great Hall, and there was a raucous confusion of chatter, and much scraping of cutlery on plates.

Hermione looked up suddenly. 'Lupin?'

'Yes, Lupin!' replied Harry irritably. 'He was in Snape's office, having a cup of tea, with him.'

Ron stared. 'Has he gone mad?'

'That would be my theory, since he said mind control doesn't work on him,' said Harry, hacking at a lamb chop with his knife.

'What!' Exclaimed Ron, tipping pumpkin juice down himself.

Hermione looked at them both contemptuously.

'If you two had done that werewolf essay back in year three you would have known that already,' Hermione sighed. 'The Imperious curse can only control humans. As werewolves are not completely human, the curse will only anger the wolf and make them transform.'

'So, I must have something wrong with my blood, too,' said Harry bitterly.

Ron's eyes widened. He dropped his fork.

'Blimey Harry, when Moody - er - Crouch did that curse on you in year three! But I didn't see you growing fur!'

Harry suddenly felt sick.

Hermione frowned, 'Don't be stupid, Ron!' she snapped. 'It's obvious Harry hasn't got werewolf blood!'

Harry felt both relieved, and alarmed at the same time. He wasn't a wolf, but he wasn't completely human. He pushed his plate aside; he couldn't bring himself to eat one more mouthful.

'So what am I, if I'm not completely human?' Harry asked quietly, dreading the answer.

'That's the awkward bit, Harry,' said Hermione. 'You must somehow be carrying a type of blood curse. But...as you don't change into anything under the Imperious-' She faltered, and stared at her plate.

'Well?' said Ron expectantly.

'There's one potion you could take to find out, but it would be too risky, as the antidote is almost impossible to get hold of. So - er,' Hermione shrugged looking annoyed with herself. 'I'm afraid I don't know!'

Ron spilt more pumpkin juice on himself. _Hermione_ _didn't know?_

There was an awkward silence, Harry avoided their glances, and stared up at the high table. Dumbledore was talking to McGonagall, Snape was looking out of the window. Sat next to him was the Defence Against The Dark Arts teacher, Professor Brown, a middle-aged woman with wavy, brown hair.

Incredibly this professor had so far turned out to be the most 'normal' one to be appointed to the position since Harry had been at Hogwarts. She was intelligent, fair, and professional. And as far as everyone could remember, Snape had not sneered at her once. Ron had laughed that it was probably because she had never tried to arrest, attack, or eat him.

_'Or hang him upside down,'_ thought Harry grimly.

The others had finished their dinner, and the puddings had appeared. By the sound of cackling, and several smashes at the other end of the hall Peeves was trying to beat his juggling record of twelve teacups, and a coffee pot.

Harry tried to avoid looking at the huge bowl of raspberry ripple ice cream and wafers next to him. _Blood Curse?_ What a horrible label! Even the smell of Ron's chocolate sponge made him feel queasy.

'So, Hermione, do you have any idea what Lupin would be doing in Snape's office?' he muttered.

'Well,' She mused. 'Snape could have got over his grudge...'

'Never!' exclaimed Ron suddenly. 'More like Snape's controlling him with extra special werewolf potion. He might be training him to attack non Slytherin students-'

'Ron! Honestly! They're both in the Order. Maybe they are working together on something.'

'Yeah,' muttered Harry. 'Working on what other things they can find wrong with me. They really gave me the creeps in there...'

Hermione sniffed. 'That's just daft. I just think you're angry because Lupin has been talking to him behind your back. Well, if they are working together - of course they have to talk to each other!'

Ron shot an indignant look at her, his mouth full of cake.

'Oghyehr?'

'YES, actually!' Hermione snapped back, eyes flashing.

Harry let out a quiet sigh, twirling his spoon. _What was the point in arguing with them anymore?_


	4. The Dungeon Floor

Another fine Saturday, but Harry sat alone in the Gryffindor dormitory. Ron was downstairs; most likely playing wizard chess with Dean. Hermione was revising. Probably. Neville had just come up to ask Harry if he wanted to go over the greenhouse with him to see his plants. Harry had fobbed him off saying he had an essay to finish. Why would he be interested in looking at Neville's plants?  
  
The end of year exams were coming up. Harry didn't care. He had gradually begun to care less about most things, even Quidditch. Umbridge had not returned, the ban was lifted, and he had his Firebolt back. Ron was improving session by session. In fact, the more excited Ron got about the game, the less excited Harry felt about it. He had to drag himself out of bed for the practice sessions now.  
  
The Spring practice sessions greeted the Quidditch players with many crisp blue skies. The mild weather had brought the leaves half out on the trees, and large clumps of daffodils were blooming all over the muddy, Hogwarts grounds.  
  
Harry sighed, squinting at the other players battle it out way below him, while scanning for the Snitch. Ginny, Andrew and Jack were calling to each other, discussing tactics, working together as one. And there was Ron, happy, excited Ron - way down there guarding the hoop. The others whooped and roared as he made a save.  
  
As a Seeker Harry used to enjoy being the one to win the game for his team. Winning a game? The first few times had sent such a thrill through him.  
  
Though after being banned last year, and getting into the habit of not practising, somehow the excitement seemed dampened down. Even if he were to catch the Snitch, fall off his broom and break his arm, and have a crowd roar, What did it matter anymore? If they did roar that is - this year people had seemed rather awkward or jumpy around him.  
  
It would make no real difference, really, to everyday life - a cheer, a jeer, or even a sneer. Another distant noise, from a lot of distant people.  
  
Life was much more straightforward now, either become a murderer, or be murdered.  
  
Ron saved again, the Quaffle whipped away by the tail of his broom. As Harry watched Ron being slapped on the back by the others, he failed to notice the small shimmering ball darting around next to him...  
  
"You okay, Harry?" Came a nervous voice from the top of the stairs.  
  
"Yeah," mumbled Harry. "Just want some time alone."

Seamus looked around the room awkwardly. This time last year Harry would have sneered, and snapped at him. "Well - eh - if yehr sure?" He faltered, glancing up at Harry's eyes. They were still staring blankly at the wall.  
  
"I'm sure," said Harry vaguely. Seamus stood helpless for a moment before he turned, casting several concerned glances back at him as he went down the stairs.  
  
It had been over ten months since his Godfather had disappeared. He had to use this word. Death to him meant a body. Sirius had disappeared. No more playful Snuffles. Even Phineas Nigellus still refused to believe it.  
  
Disappeared or dead, both of them meant absence. Long days of silence. No supportive owls. Just memories of a black veil, and the whisperings.  
  
And then there was the worry about Lupin.  
  
Lupin had taken it badly. His hair had gone almost half grey, and his face had taken on a distinctly haunted look. Harry couldn't bear to imagine what it would be like to lose someone who would always offer to stand by you, even in your darkest state.  
  
He had only seen him once over the summer holidays, then a few other times, like over at the Weasley's for Christmas, and that last time he had looked even sadder than ever. He had been supportive around Harry, but also quiet and detached. As if something was always trying to draw his attention away.  
  
And then, there he was the other day having a friendly cup of tea and a chat with Snape! Harry wasn't sure if he would have been more hurt if Lupin wasn't his guardian. But he was. Or was supposed to be. But after that Occlumency lesson he had to dash off, leaving Harry with many questions, and nobody to answer them, as Lupin, like Hagrid, and most of the Order, was too busy to listen to him often.  
  
Harry turned round as if in a trance, and pulled the photograph album Hagrid had once given him out of his trunk. Picture after picture waved at him happily. He had never met any of these relations. He must be the only Potter left alive. And this was why he ended up with Aunt Petunia.  
  
Harry's visions had finally stopped as he began to master Occlumency. He couldn't know, of course, that his mastery of Occlumency had been aided by his gradual numbing of his senses. It wasn't as if he didn't feel pain, rather he didn't care that he could. He wanted to distance himself from it. He stared at the pictures, wondering if Voldemort may still be able to see what he was looking at. What he secretly wanted.  
  
If he could, then he would probably guess that it might only take one more terrible vision to drive Harry to poison.  
  
Poison. _'At least Snape would be happy_,' Harry thought grimly. _The last of the Potters out of his way, forever.  
_  
The git might even smile instead of sneer.  
  
He could even do it right in the middle of his lesson, and have all the witnesses frame him for murder.The 'Lamentable Potion Maker,' getting the last laugh. It made sense. Not only would he be free from Voldemort, he would be free to join Sirius, and finally get to hug all the family he had never known.

* * *

He stared vaguely at the low stone ceiling. It reminded him of a sky filled with dark grey clouds, and when he used to stare miserably out the Dursley's window on those bleak, damp winter days before he knew he was a wizard. He smiled faintly.  
  
"Up you get, Harry," said Lupin gently, easing him up from where he had fallen back on the dungeon floor.  
  
Snape hissed impatiently. Potter was usually snapping at him by now. He had had the perfect insult ready.  
  
"Potter, how am I supposed to teach you this, if you keep on drifting off into Laa-laa land?" he snapped.  
  
"Sorry sir," mumbled Harry. He was imagining what it would be like to be nine, or ten, sneaking out to watch cartoons when the Dursleys went shopping on a Saturday morning. To be shut away in the dark again, talking to the spiders under the stairs, safe and ignorant. Out of everybody's way.  
  
"...talking to the spiders..." muttered Harry vaguely.

Lupin cast a look up at Snape, and frowned. "What was he thinking about before he collapsed?" he asked, worriedly.  
  
"I can assure that it was just childish self pity, Lupin," muttered Snape coldly. "Shut up pathetically in a dark room all by himself. Stand, Potter!" he ordered.  
  
"I'm tired," whispered Harry.  
  
"So am I, Potter," hissed Snape. "Tired of your attitude!"  
  
"I'm bored of yours," returned Harry, wearily. "Sneer all you like, I'm not going to respond," he added quickly before Snape had the chance to do just that.  
  
Snape paused mid sneer, pressed his lips together, and narrowed his eyes instead. "Very good, Potter - six whole years at Hogwarts, and finally you've learnt something!"  
  
"Yes sir," replied Harry quietly.  
  
"And would that be, perhaps, finally, not to walk round like a puffed up, insolent lord all day?" he said silkily, peering down his nose at Harry.  
  
Harry failed to reply.  
  
Snape's eyes glittered triumphantly as he raised his wand. A meek and submissive Potter? One he could drive to insanity without danger of backlash?  
  
_But, what if that were true? hissed a little voice in his head. Where would be the satisfaction?  
  
_"Now - where were we?" He muttered out loud, irritated for allowing thoughts to sidetrack him. "If you can clear your mind Potter, maybe we can get on with this infernal subject. You are almost at an acceptable skill level, which means I will not have to partake in this farce for much longer."  
  
Harry stood up.

"Ready?" Snape warned. "One...Two..."  
  
"For the last time, can't you see I'm not like he was?' blurted out Harry miserably. 'That was my bullying dad, this is me, okay? If I'm lucky enough to grow up, it's clear I'll only be a weirdo loner who everyone hates."  
  
While Snape just stared at him, his wand still in the air, Lupin was visibly shocked.  
  
"Harry! What on earth would make you say that?"  
  
"Everything makes me say that!" Exclaimed Harry bitterly. "People have hated me since before I was born! - Most of the school does! – Every year, the new kids always line up to stare at the freak! - Innocent people always die because of me! - I hate myself - I hate my life, and - and - I hate my dad for leaving me to deal with it all!" He took a deep shuddering breath.  
  
"Harry," said Lupin in a hushed voice. "Nobody hates you-"  
  
"DON'T YOU BLOODY LIE TO ME!' yelled Harry suddenly, turning wildly on Lupin. 'I'VE HEARD IT ALL BEFORE! IN THE PAPERS, WHISPERING, GOSSIPING. THEY HATE, HATE, HATE!"  
  
Lupin was unnerved. The look in the teenager's darting eyes seemed well beyond reason. "Harry - your father loved-"  
  
"DON'T YOU DARE SAY IT!" screamed Harry. "IT' WON'T CHANGE ANYTHING - HE'S DEAD BECAUSE OF ME!"  
  
Lupin had gone very pale. "Do you believe I hate you, Harry?" he asked carefully, reaching a hand out to him. "Did Sirius hate you?"  
  
As Lupin's hand brushed his arm, Harry flinched away and shuddered.  
  
"You're only hanging around because you think I'm like my father," muttered Harry cruelly. "And Sirius was the same, 'Oh, your dad would have done this! Your dad was so good at that! Your dad was much more fun!' Well I'm sick of it, so you can just get out of my life as well!"  
  
"You don't mean that, Harry," said Lupin firmly.

But Harry had already raised his wand. "I do. Now – get...out..."

Lupin got up. As he reached as calmly toward the door as he could, he turned and opened his mouth, as if to say something.  
  
"GET OUT!" bellowed Harry at the top of his voice, sparks crackling up and down his wand.  
  
Lupin did.

* * *

His ears ringing from the shouting, Lupin stood awkwardly in the chill corridor. He was supposed to be Harry's level-headed guardian; and he should have seen this coming, had words ready to comfort him. He smiled wanly. And he thought he would be better at it than Sirius?  
  
Lupin decided to loiter in the corridor a while. He felt quite uneasy about leaving Harry alone with Snape. Lupin had expected a backlash sooner or later, on account of Sirius' death. But he hadn't planned for this. He'd always thought Harry would be tough and fair. But what he'd just heard had been bitter, and very cruel. Lupin bit his lip. And - it had been definitely unlike James.  
  
Lupin strained his ears. He expected to hear the row continuing. The Potions Master wouldn't tolerate such a spectacle in his office, surely? He was Snape! He would drag Harry out by his ears!  
  
He smiled grimly, and inched closer to the door. Harry sounded like he was demanding something from Snape. A little nearer.  
  
Lupin's face drained of colour as he pieced together what they were saying. He ran to the door and tried to force it open. It was jammed! No: it was a sealing charm. A very strong one, too. Too powerful for him to break.  
  
Lupin gave up, and turning swiftly, ran out of the dungeons. He had to get Dumbledore - very quickly.

* * *

Harry let his wand fall from his hand. Lowering himself down in Lupin's chair, he stared dumbly at the floor, shaking in a mixture of rage and horror at what he had just done.  
  
Snape lowered his wand. He knew full well that Occlumency had a tendency to depress people who were vulnerable, but Dumbledore had expressly ordered him not to mention it to Harry, as it would only make him even more difficult to teach.  
  
His black eyes flashed. Damn Dumbledore! _He knew!_ _Knew all along that it would end up in an emotional scene like this!  
_  
Snape snarled and clenched his fists. He viciously struck out at a pile of books on his desk, sending them flying across the dungeon. Why was it always him, and not anyone else, left looking like the fool? Seething and bitter, his thin hands curling like claws, he leered maliciously at Harry,  
  
"Going a little, insane, are we, Potter?"  
  
The boy either ignored him, or had not heard. He was still breathing heavily, his eyes still glaring at the floor. Snape's gaze darted madly toward the dungeon ceiling.  
  
"Well, well, Potter Senior!" Snape leered to the air, an odd gleam in his eyes. "See how the tables turn? Oh yes, you may have had your fun - But see how justice finally finds its way back, all on its own...rather twisted....path?" His mouth curled into a horrible leer. "To think - your own son, Potter, in your old school rival's office. Your son, screaming at your friend, and telling me how he hates you!"  
  
Harry let out a strangled sob as Snape's, dry, mirthless chuckle echoed round the dungeon. His father was being mocked, but he would ignore it. He might get to see him, soon anyway.  
  
"Sir," he said suddenly, looking up. Snape ignored him.  
  
"Sir!" he said more urgently, "I'm thinking of poison."  
  
"What are you muttering about, Potter?" the Professor spat. "Can't you see I'm busy?"  
  
"Sir – Please give me some poison."  
  
"Oh, what else can be wrong with you now, boy?" Snape sneered sarcastically, turning a twisted face in Harry's direction. "Don't you want to die like a famous, legendary Potter anymore?"  
  
"Why should you care? Let me do it now!" threatened Harry.  
  
"PLEASE - let me do it now - SIR!" spat back Snape. "Where are your newfound manners now, Potter? Did they disappear with your sanity?"  
  
"N-No sir!" stammered Harry.  
  
"Don't be an idiot, Potter! You're bluffing! You may be rash like a Gryffindor, but the Slytherin in you should never allow it!"  
  
'N-No! I want to - I need to - I can't stand-'  
  
"- _Being on the edge?_" cut in Snape, his eyes glittering. Harry stared back, his mouth open. "Well good!" came the jeering reply. "I hope you are suffering for it!"  
  
The boy's face seemed to crumple as the Potions Master crossed his arms, and stared defiantly down at him. Then, before Snape could even blink, let alone react, Harry had swiftly taken a very small phial out of his pocket, uncorked it, and dripped the black contents on his tongue.  
  
The Potions Master froze in horror as he watched a glazed expression relax his student's face. As Harry crumpled to the floor, Snape felt the powerful wave of a familiar nausea creep over him. The worst ever - in fifteen years.  
  
Steadying himself against the table, Snape watched the room lurch in front of his eyes.  
  
He had threatened to do the very same thing himself when he was sixteen. But he had never been quite stupid or reckless enough to actually do it.  
  
"Gryffindors!" He bellowed madly at the ceiling. 


	5. Delirious

Chapter 5: Delirious

"Calm yourself, Remus."  
  
"Professor!" Remus gasped, staring around the Headmaster's office wildly. "You must come! Harry is - in dungeons asking Snape - to poison him - right now!"  
  
"I know," said Dumbledore quietly.  
  
"You - know?" gaped Lupin. "But," He looked around wildly. "But..." He felt his knees go weak, making him collapse onto a chair.  
  
"Severus is going to poison Harry Potter?" came a disbelieving tone from a dark corner. "Ha! Then maybe all is not lost!"  
  
"Enough, thank you Desmodus, or I will silence as well as impede you!" returned Dumbledore coolly.  
  
"Yes, please _do_ silence him, Dumbledore," drawled across the tone of Phineas Nigellus. "One can only take a certain amount of noise from a family such as that. That being; no amount at all!"  
  
Dumbledore pretended he hadn't heard. "Severus will not give poison to Harry, Remus."  
  
"And why not?" enquired Lupin.  
  
"Because, Remus, because. There are certain things I would like to keep confidential," replied Dumbledore gently. "But I can tell you this: he cannot."  
  
"He's a Potions Master who got straight 'O's in his NEWTS, with a twenty year grudge fresh as this morning's milk; but he can't poison Harry?'" whispered Lupin faintly.  
  
"I'm not considering Severus' natural strengths in Potions," said Dumbledore quietly. "I'm considering Harry's natural protection against harm."  
  
"Natural protection!" spluttered out the voice from the corner. "Well! I just don-"  
  
"Silencio!" Cut in Dumbledore swiftly. Desmodus looked like he was about to bounce off the walls. He whirled about, sneered, snarled and showed his fangs, before finally shaking a clawed finger at the Headmaster, while mouthing something extremely rude.  
  
"Well - I have been saying it for near two hundred years, Albus, and I will say it again," droned a sarcastic voice. "Be loyal to your wizarding blood. Once you start mixing it with the lower species, results show themselves plainly for what they are."  
  
"Thank you kindly Phineas, for your ever enlightening wisdom," replied Dumbledore testily, his moustache twitching in irritation.  
  
"Natural protection - Professor?" prompted Lupin.  
  
"Ah yes, Remus, thank you for reminding me. As I have always known, Harry has a natural aspect, which will...ah...protect him," Dumbledore said simply. He paused to reach inside his robes, pulling out some sweets. "Care for a sherbet lemon?"  
  
Remus Lupin couldn't keep a scowl from his face. He was renowned for his calmness in dire situations. But when poison, Snape and Harry were in the same equation; the uncontrollable urge to stick a sherbet lemon _up somewhere_ was the first thing which had come to Lupin's mind.  
  
"Professor Dumbledore!" he demanded. "Harry is-"  
  
"Fine, Remus."  
  
"But the door's sealed! - I couldn't-"  
  
"I sealed it."  
  
"...You...?"  
  
Dumbledore sighed. "Yes. I know that many people have questioned my trust in Professor Snape, and I expect many more will query like them. But I cannot elaborate on what is confidential. That would be misplacing his trust."  
  
Lupin looked very confused. "Then, why shut Harry in with Severus?"  
  
"Oh, good point," mused Dumbledore absent-mindedly, unwrapping another sweet.

Lupin looked him in the eye. There was a sense of mischief in their twinkle...  
  
"Because, Remus - I was bored."  
  
Lupin stared. Even Phineas Nigellus raised an eyebrow. Dumbledore's 'so- called eccentricity' at times like this could easily be read as 'so-called insanity.'  
  
"That is, Remus, bored of watching them continually struggle to see eye to eye," the headmaster elaborated brightly. "I am pleased, though, that Severus - now circumstances have quietened down a bit - has almost managed to overcome his dislike for you."  
  
"So you would like Harry Potter and Severus Snape to, to - like each other?" asked Lupin in undisguised shock.  
  
"Well...tolerate, would do; we mustn't wish for miracles," replied Dumbledore. "The hostility, particularly since last term is beginning to prove more destructive rather than productive. Up to now I have purposefully allowed Severus's - er - inclinations to-"  
  
"Rampage?" came a sly comment  
  
"For want of a better word, yes," stated Dumbledore, his moustache twitching again. "I wanted to prepare Harry for his future. But, unfortunately, despite my efforts, Harry's self control is still-"  
  
"Like a Snape's?" the reedy voice cut in again.  
  
"No," remarked Dumbledore more firmly. "Like a teenager's."  
  
Phineas raised an eyebrow. "Doesn't speak well for our dear Severus then."  
  
Dumbledore continued, unabashed. "And I know they do have things in common, which they absolutely, and stubbornly refuse to acknowledge. Hm.sounds like a Muggle novel I read once...quite a long time ago," he chuckled to himself.  
  
"Things in common?" exclaimed Lupin wildly, the back of his neck prickling. "What by Merlin do you mean?!"  
  
For a split second Lupin thought of the portrait still ranting in the corner behind him. His heart skipped a beat. Now he considered it, Harry was getting rather vicious...  
  
Dumbledore let out a long, weary sigh. "I saw things when teaching Severus Occlumency, which I really would rather have not. And with Harry..." he paused looking up into the younger man's eyes. "Well..."  
  
"He does seem very depressed," mumbled Lupin. "I - I have tried to comfort him, but with my own grief to deal with, and the work for the Order, it has been, rather difficult. He just won't talk to me."  
  
"We are all grieving for Sirius," said Dumbledore sadly. "But unlike your lifetime, Remus, Sirius has played only a small - if important - part in Harry's. This grief at the surface of his conscious is only uprooting much deeper buried horrors, which I know he has never confided to anyone. I believe this is causing his detachment."  
  
Lupin's eyes wandered to the fuming picture in the corner. Desmodus arched his black eyebrows and smirked back at him evilly. He had always felt uncomfortable when James and Sirius fought Snape back at school. Snape had always been so jealous of them, surly, vindictive, scruffy git that he was.  
  
But they had nicknamed him Snivellus for a reason. On his first train journey to Hogwarts, Lupin had been comparing frog cards and talking Quidditch with a chatty, confident boy, with dark hair and glasses, when a wild, mischievous looking livewire of a boy had bounded into their carriage.  
  
"Did you know someone's been hogging that bloody toilet for over an hour!'" he'd said. The boy then introduced himself as Sirius Black, and went on to exclaim that he'd knocked on the door several times, but the occupant had just sworn viciously at him and refused to come out. Up for some amusement, the two of them had followed him. Then James had dared Sirius to blast open the door.  
  
'That was the first time I should have stood up for Snape,' thought Lupin bitterly. A bad tempered Slytherin, or not, the boy had shut himself away to cry for a reason. But Lupin at eleven already knew too much about loneliness, and so had been scared of losing his new friends.  
  
"I suppose I realise how lucky I am now, Dumbledore,' he sighed wearily. 'At least Lycanthrophy doesn't lean you naturally toward evil."  
  
"Severus is not naturally evil, Remus. He just had an extremely unfortunate start to life."  
  
"Which has made him somewhat, unhinged. In my day I would never have allowed a vampire like that near a wand," commented Phineas dryly.  
  
"Phineas," remarked Dumbledore wearily, as if he had heard this one many times before. "Severus is human, as I keep telling you. I know he may tend to the - more favourable - temperaments of the vampire, but as you full well know he is quarter-blood. Unlike vampires, he is very much alive, and inherently more tractable. His mother was a very capable witch, and thus I have no misgivings with allowing him to carry a wand."  
  
"Don't expect me to figure out how the half-breed thinks, Albus!" sneered Phineas. "I prefer to judge for myself, and all the ones I met in my lifetime all turned out to be dangerously unstable."  
  
"But Headmaster: Severus AND Harry?" cut in Lupin doubtfully.  
  
Dumbledore turned to Lupin with the aim of coolly ignoring the indignant portrait.  
  
"He is sixteen, Remus. And now his Occlumency skills have become strong enough to block out Voldemort's prying eyes, I feel that it would be harmful to allow the prejudice to carry on any longer."  
  
"But can't you talk with Harry, instead of Snape?" suggested Lupin, desperately clutching at straws.  
  
"No Remus," sighed Dumbledore. "Heavens, I have already tried. My calmness seems to antagonise him. And his high energies make him a little too - spirited - for me to handle."  
  
"Spirited, Albus!" exclaimed a reedy voice, more insistent than ever. "More trollish if you ask me! Have you conveniently forgotten the finer details of that occasion? I nearly had my canvas ripped through by flying table legs!"  
  
'I'm sorry, Phineas, you know I am," Dumbledore sighed again. He shifted a heavy gaze on to Lupin. "But you see, Remus, you youngsters do insist on making us oldies feel our age."  
  
Lupin looked up, and saw the old wizard's pale eyes were twinkling rather oddly again. He also noted his voice continued with a gentleness, that almost sounded fearful.  
  
"Out of the few hopeful thoughts I've had for their futures, this is the one hope, however far fetched it may seem, I will always refuse to loose sight of."

* * *

Severus Snape stood still as if in a trance. He knew the boy wasn't dead without needing to check for a pulse. When it was quiet enough he could often sense others' heartbeats some distance away. It was one family trait he had inherited which actually came in useful.  
  
He bent down, prised the phial from Harry's clenched fist, and sniffed it. He frowned. Dusk nightshade and Grey-eye venom.  
  
Where the hell did Potter get hold of such things?  
  
"Most likely where I would get hold of them - in Knockturn Alley," he muttered to himself darkly.  
  
Going by the strength of the smell Snape guessed the concentration of nightshade was higher than the venom. This meant he had approximately two minutes to save the boy, before the poison seeped its way to his heart.  
  
He shivered feverishly; feeling as ill as he did, he could have done with longer.  
  
He wrenched the top off a jar of bezoar stones. He needed two of these. He crossed to a shelf of venoms behind his desk. The jars rattled and rotated, until a tall thin bottle came into view. The liquid in it was a pale, cloudy yellow.  
  
Grinding the bezoars proved difficult, as the muscles in his arms kept cramping from the fever. Finally, though they became powder, and he could add the venom. It hissed and bubbled violently, turning a dirty ochre.  
  
Pausing to wipe the sweat from his brow, Snape then retrieved something from a pocket in his robes. He stared at it, his lip curling. He always thought it ironic; the fact that it was a simple -Muggle- invention. Yet it had come in useful to him before. Removing the cap he placed the end into the antidote. Hands trembling, he drew up the plunger.  
  
Crouching down by the crumpled body, he took hold of the teenager's arm, scowling as he did so, and twisted it round. Snape couldn't stop himself from shuddering, and pulling a face.  
  
He was disgusted with his reaction. Dealing with all sorts of vile, noxious things (Not including students) every day, and he, a Potions Master, was bothered by a simple injection! As he stood up, quivering all over, he felt relieved that Potter was out cold.  
  
He collapsed into a chair and waited. He felt like he was burning up; his muscles were aching, and his forehead was dripping sweat into his eyes. But as the minutes crept by he became confident that the fever was subsiding. A good sign: the obnoxious brat was recovering. He could sense the boy's heart was becoming less erratic.  
  
He would gladly take alcohol if he wasn't so sure he would be sick. He closed his eyes to stop the room sliding about. _Damn the Potters! Damn Dumbledore! Damn Lily_...  
  
"MUM! - DAD!"  
  
Snape nearly hit the roof. His eyes darted wildly around the room. Harry had come round, and was staring wide-eyed at the ceiling.  
  
Snape groaned. The boy was only hallucinating-  
  
"Be quiet, Potter. I've got a splitting headache," Snape answered, trying his best to growl irritably.  
  
Harry's eyes were wandering around the room. "Oh...but I want to stay here," he moaned. "Don't make me-"  
  
"Potter! Don't make me come over there!" hissed Snape. _Inane rambling, this was more than he could stand._ He got up, and made a determined effort to reach the door. The boy would be going to the hospital wing, directly.

His office door was stuck.  
  
No - it was sealed with a charm. One even he couldn't identify. He swung round. His jar of Floo powder had disappeared as well. His eyes darkened as they fixed upon the likely culprit.  
  
"Potter, remove this charm at once!"  
  
"I have dreams about you so often," murmured Harry, sleepily.  
  
"_Oh - marvellous_..."  
  
"But you want me to - are you sure?" The boy began to wail and moan. 'No - I can't – please, oh please don't make me! But why would I? I don't?'  
  
Snape clenched his jaw, and stalked back to his chair. _How wondrously superb._ Trapped in his office with one delirious Harry Potter, while still ailing from the after-effects of a fever. This would be an ideal memory to permanently leave in the pensieve.  
  
"No! Please don't let me go - I can't do this! No! Mum – Muuum...!" At this last haunting cry Harry fell silent, a look of bitter disappointment twisting his face. Then he shuddered, and sat up suddenly.  
  
Snape smiled at the disorientated boy grimly. "Hello, Potter. How was Laa laa land this time? Clement weather, was it? You really ought to consider sending me a postcard."  
  
Harry looked around dazed before he realised who was speaking. He was still alive! Realising this brought with it a flood of emotions, the most prominent one being panic. Dragging himself up he ran awkwardly to the door. It wouldn't budge. He banged on it frantically.  
  
"Let me out!" cried Harry.  
  
"Tell me how, and I gladly will" sneered back Snape.  
  
"B-but it's not me, sir!"  
  
"That's getting cliché, Potter," came the dangerous tone.  
  
Harry's stared, his eyes narrowing meanly. Somehow, he knew Snape really didn't know how to open it. But - this didn't mean he needed to admit that he himself couldn't, if he could use it to advantage.  
  
"Okay, sir," he hissed. "Since as you don't seem to want me dead, I will open this door; BUT, only if you tell me what is _wrong_ with my blood."  
  
"You think you could handle the truth, Potter?" returned the cold, sneering voice. "Almost killing yourself pathetically over a beast like Black, I doubt you could."  
  
"So you were a perfectly stable sixteen year old then, were you?" shot back Harry. "Want to give me any good advice?"  
  
Snape snarled. He hated how Harry was beginning to understand him. If only he felt better he would have the noisy idiot out in the corridor in a second.  
  
And if only he could open the door.  
  
"You have no right to backchat a teacher in this way!" he spat. "Twenty points from Gryffindor!"  
  
"That's getting cliché, Professor Snape," replied Harry just as dangerously.  
  
They stared at one another hatefully. Harry tensed; Snape's eyes seemed to pierce into him.  
  
"Snape's charmed the door but he says it's me. What does this mean? Does he really not want me to leave? Ugh! What a creepy thought!" thought Harry, concentrating his hardest.  
  
Snape hissed. _Surely this thought was false?_ If that was so, the boy's powers at Occlumency were much better than he had thought.  
  
"Sit down, Potter, and be quiet," he muttered coldly. If he could block his attempts, he could certainly block the Dark Lord's. Maybe he should congratulate Potter, but, then again. Snape grimaced and put his hands to his brow. Unfortunately, he was sure he could feel the beginnings of a migraine coming on-  
  
Meanwhile, Harry had sat back down in front of Snape's desk, and trained his eyes on his face. How he wished he could do Legilimency too.  
  
To figure out the man who had been trying for six years to get him expelled, and who had made sure his life was as miserable as he could make it along the way.  
  
To an onlooker it could seem like Snape didn't understand Harry at all. Harry shivered; How he hoped it really was that straightforward.  
  
Because Snape, despite everything, was always the one to sense when Harry was up to something. Now after months of ransacking memories in Occlumency, Harry knew Snape, with all his other obsessions, suspicions and intuitions, knew him far better than any other professor or adult did. And this closeness was the thought he dreaded to linger on.  
  
Snape was still looking dishevelled, and rather paler than usual. Which, compared with the other Snape hues, was dangerously pale.  
  
"Are you not well, sir?" he asked.  
  
"No I am not," Snape replied harshly, raising his head to glare at his questioner. "I believe _someone_ saw to that, earlier."  
  
"You can't blame me for every little thing," scowled Harry.  
  
"Ah...but I can blame you for this _little _thing, Potter, because you have indeed made me ill."  
  
"I suppose you'll try and get me expelled now saying how I poisoned you," muttered Harry.  
  
"That would be an excellent suggestion," came the sarcastic tone. "If, you _had_ poisoned me. _Directly_..."  
  
"Oh, come on! How - how else could I have poisoned you?" flustered Harry, going red in the face with anger. "INDIRECTLY??!!"  
  
"Now; it seems this subject is getting interestingly near your original question," said Snape softly, sitting back in his chair, his black eyes glittering strangely.  
  
Harry went quiet. His original question? "About what's wrong with my blood?" he sneered suspiciously. He leaned forward. "What the hell has that got to do with me poisoning you?"  
  
A sly grin spread across the Potion Master's face. Mustering up enough strength, he leaned forward over the desk, until Harry's sneer was barely a foot from his own.  
  
"Now _that_ greatly unfortunate disadvantage is something only Dumbledore, myself..." he bared his yellow teeth, "...and your mother - knew about."


	6. Haunted

Snape watched with a grim satisfaction as Harry seemed to wilt back into his chair, tinging pale at first, then a sickly green. Of course, the boy could never have suspected anything like this. This reaction was even better than the day he saw Lupin having tea in his office.  
  
'Y-You're - m-my father?' trembled the boy faintly.  
  
Snape stared, aghast.  
  
'Wh-? Of course I'm not, you stupid dolt!' He spluttered angrily, coming to his senses.  
  
Harry breathed again, and colour seemed to improve a little. But then he shuddered, as if something had suddenly brushed past him.  
  
'Dumbledore, my mother - and you?'  
  
'Yes?' came the sour reply.  
  
'So then - it was all real? And not just another dream?' Harry stood up quickly, quivering, his eyes scanning the shadowy room.  
  
Blasted Merlin! -What- was the boy on?  
  
'They were here - in this room-'  
  
'Who were?' said Snape sharply.  
  
Harry smiled. 'My parents of course! Mum? Dad?' he called, his eyes continuing to wander.  
  
Snape stared. The boy was clearly still having hallucinations from the antidote. Maybe he had added a drop too much adder venom.  
  
'Just hallucinations, Potter - from the poison antidote,' he said coolly. 'Sit back down.'  
  
'My father, he didn't look too pleased. But - ' Harry said strangely, his eyes wandering back to Snape's face, 'my mother said she needed to tell -you- something.'  
  
Snape was unnerved. He knew the boy was, too. 'You're talking rubbish again, Potter,' he hissed fiercely. 'I added too much venom-'  
  
'IT'S NOT RUBBISH!' cut in Harry angrily. His look had been so ferocious it even caused Snape to raise an alarmed eyebrow.  
  
'S-She-'  
  
He swallowed, and shut his eyes. His mouth was drying out rapidly.  
  
'She said I must tell you that - she is sad that she never had the chance to thank you for doing your best to protect us. And,' Harry rasped, almost horrified at what he was saying, 'she is - happy you - found yourself, and changed sides.'  
  
Snape closed his eyes and breathed in deeply. How in Merlin's name could the boy know this? He could hear a pulse thudding in his head.  
  
There was no possible way the boy could have found out the sworn secret. To know this, he would have needed to speak to-  
  
It suddenly felt as if the full force of the fever was coming back again, and bringing with it, all the darkness of the past.  
  
*******  
  
Harry continued to stare at Snape, whose head had fallen onto his chest. He had experienced so many different emotions in the past few minutes, he felt like his brain was going to explode. He looks deathly now. Harry thought, alarmed. He couldn't fathom the reason why Snape's face should suddenly twist in such a way.  
  
His imagination began to run loose with the possibilities. Maybe he's had a stroke or a fit? But he looks like death. So that would leave me in a room with a corpse? Will I always be doomed to witness death after death?  
  
But to be trapped in a room with Snape, with a-  
  
He gulped.  
  
With another dead-  
  
Harry now thought he might panic; and felt he had to break the silence. His voice trembled, 'W-What did you use that would make the killing curse bounce - sir?'  
  
His question echoed off the stone walls, and died.  
  
'Professor Snape?'  
  
'Sir?'  
  
The silence grew louder. The Candle flames flickered, casting deeper shadows, which seemed to shiver at their edges.  
  
Harry had begun to fear the worst. And then, a faint, unusually hoarse voice shattered the quiet.  
  
'A difficult draught - containing some blood. My -own- blood.'  
  
Harry felt his stomach lurch. Snape's blood - used on him. So Snape must be a half breed as well. This must give him some resistance against Unforgivables.  
  
Could this be the reason why he often felt so cold and cruel? Had the fear he'd uttered earlier on, turned into fact? Was he destined to become more like Snape?  
  
Harry's breathing became shallow. He wasn't as mean as Snape, surely he'd never go that far? But the man had mixed his own blood in a potion, then he'd gone and -  
  
It was too awful to think about. But, he still needed to know. 'S-So that would be - why the poison-'  
  
'Yes.' Snape sighed abruptly. 'Yes, Potter.' He felt suddenly very weary -much older than his years. One weight had been lifted, but another had already fallen. And he had just had a message from beyond the grave. 'And I hope you're j-just overjoyed by what you've done.'  
  
The last comment didn't come out sarcastically, as he would have liked. It had sounded weak. Snape cursed inwardly at his slip in front of Potter.  
  
'Of all people!' he thought angrily, 'When I recover from this pathetic weakness, I'll - I'll -'  
  
'So - what type of blood is it, sir?' The question was out even before he knew whether he wanted to hear the answer. Filling with dread, Harry got up silently. He aimed to try the door again. Deathlike Snape wasn't dead, and he wanted out before he got angry.  
  
Snape's fingers curled. This was intolerable. How in blasted Merlin, was it this boy could attempt suicide, then escape death, and still have enough strength to ask questions? Was he gloating?  
  
'Why should you care, Potter?' he snarled abruptly, his head snapping round. 'And GET back here!'  
  
Harry stopped in his tracks, and stared. The professor still had his eyes closed, but had still managed to point his sneer right at him!  
  
He turned, and walked back over to the desk. On that point, maybe he shouldn't attempt to escape. Maybe this blood thing was why Snape knew him so well. His blood like a tracer, or something to be homed in on by members of the same species..  
  
Perching gingerly on the edge of the chair, Harry gazed up at the ceiling, and shuddered.  
  
He thought back through all the Defence Against the Dark Arts lessons. Lycanthropes, Vampires, Zombies, Ghouls, Wights. All had blood curses, but he was pretty sure Snape wasn't dead, or rotting, or a wolf. So most of them were ruled out.  
  
He turned to Snape's memories. He saw the hook-nosed man shouting at the cowering woman. He looked an awful lot like Snape did when he was yelling at him, but somehow even scarier, paler-  
  
Then the dark room, and the two silhouettes became visible; it was that memory again.  
  
But something else was now audible just before the scream. An odd type of spitting snarl. Then the darkness obscured it all. He winced as the horrible scream played through his head again, before cutting off.  
  
'I care, sir,' replied Harry softly, 'because your memories have been disturbing - ' he faltered. 'Haunting me. For weeks-'  
  
'If that is so, then, why didn't you run and ask Know-it-all Granger to explain the blatantly obvious to you, Potter?' he snapped. 'She's probably been writing a carefully constructed thesis on me for years.'  
  
'No! I would never do that. I swear, on their lives, I have never done that! Why would I, when I never even told her the reason why I stopped Occlumency last year?' he replied, steadily, looking the professor in the face.  
  
'They still have no idea - sir.'  
  
Snape opened his eyes, and found the boy looking earnestly at him, waiting for an explanation.  
  
Such Gryffindor nobility.  
  
Instantly he felt the old malice burn. It was such a battle to keep it back. He's still James Potter's son. But he was also Lily's son.He could care, but.Hate was so much easier. Much less taxing, demanding. And the rest. Damn his whole family! Damn them all!  
  
Harry watched as Snape's face tensed, relaxed, then scowled. 'But sir, I heard what you called my mum - in the -'  
  
'Like you Potter - she had to stick her blasted nose where it wasn't wanted!' spat the professor. 'Besides,' he added bitterly, 'your tantrum earlier echoed everything I always told you about Black and your father. Didn't it?'  
  
'B-But-' he trailed off. And what he had said to Lupin-  
  
Harry had no wish to carry the debate on any further. He felt as if too many bits of information had been shoved at him all at once. He lapsed into a gloomy silence.  
  
Snape was glad the boy had gone quiet. His whole body was aching considerably. He was also being disturbed by various flashes of memory he had viewed in more recent Occlumency sessions. He would never suffer to admit it, but Harry's memories had actually begun to haunt him.  
  
The muffled silence and odd security of sitting in a stale, dark cupboard. Staring at the wall for hours on end - the gentle buzzing of bees while lying concealed in a heat parched, strong smelling flowerbed - standing all alone looking over a Wintery Hogwarts' lake, listening to bare tree branches being whipped about by the wind - hearing the distant shouts of Quidditch players, while flying high and alone on a broom -  
  
Last year there had been violence, fear and anger in virtually all of the boy's flashbacks. This year there had been almost none. Just endless memory after memory of silent, detached apathy. Somehow these ones bothered him more than the violent scenes. He knew in which direction Harry's mind was heading.  
  
Snape half wished he was now lying concealed in a flowerbed, or some such remote place. Alone and undisturbed, his name unknown, identity unrecognised. Anywhere but in this bloody office.  
  
Where were Granger, Weasley, Creevey, and all his other adoring fans in these memories? The people who he knew always cheered for him in the great Hall and at Quidditch? All those heroic scenes his father loved to revel in? Girlfriends, even? He should have bothered to point all this out to Dumbledore really.  
  
Dumbledore.  
  
'I should have known!' muttered Snape; sitting up, suddenly. 'He conjured the seal!'  
  
'W-Who?' gasped Harry, starting back.  
  
'The Headmaster!' he snarled, leaping up and swooping past him to the door.  
  
Harry was stunned. Snape was blaming Dumbledore - not 'Potter?'  
  
'DUMBLEDORE!' bellowed Snape, placing the tip of his wand on the door.  
  
It creaked open. Snape was out menacing the gloomy corridor in a flash. Harry followed close behind.  
  
When they got into the entrance hall Harry stopped trailing him and went to sneak up to the Gryffindor common room instead. He was dying to ask Hermione about Snape's curse. But as he placed a foot on the stair the Potions Master whirled about, his eyes flashing murderously.  
  
'Potter! Come here!'  
  
Harry scowled.  
  
'You are accompanying me to the Headmaster's Office,' Snape said coldly.  
  
Harry looked longingly up the stairs.  
  
'Now! Or I will take points-'  
  
A few other students in the entrance hall all turned to look at him. Harry narrowed his eyes as he turned around. The greasy, hook faced git -  
  
Snape's voice was at its lowest and most dangerous.  
  
'Scowl at me like that again and I will personally make you clean every -single - surface in my dungeon; with - your - toothbrush.'  
  
Harry relaxed his face. 'Well, it was an inventive punishment,' he thought grimly. Snape must be feeling better.  
  
He followed the professor, who swept along the corridors aggressively, his black cloak rippling out behind him. As Harry had grown still more, and was now almost Snape's height, he had little trouble keeping up.  
  
He felt students' wide-eyed stares fix on him. They were probably wondering what in Merlin's name he had done to make Snape look even madder than when someone blew up one of his best cauldrons.  
  
They reached the Headmaster's gargoyle. As Snape snapped the password, and the gargoyle stepped aside, he glanced back to check on his charge.  
  
'But if I hated someone as much as Snape hated me,' Harry thought angrily, as he followed the swishing cloak up the stairs, 'why would I choose to spend even more time with them?' 


	7. Realignments and Shadows

'Headmaster! Why have you thrust this boy on me!'  
  
The old wizard calmly watched on as his irate employee stalked up and down his office like a mad panther in a cage.  
  
'Severus, please do sit down,' he began calmly. 'I can't talk to you while you are pacing. It makes me giddy.'  
  
Snape snatched at a chair, thrust himself in it, crossed his arms and glowered.  
  
'Now, Severus, are you referring to the Occlumency lessons?' said Dumbledore innocently. 'But I had you both promise-'  
  
'He is the most insolent, troublesome, arrogant, pathetic student I have ever had the misfortune to teach!' came the enraged hiss. 'And I would like to know why you dared to have the audacity to seal me in my office with him!'  
  
Harry stood sulkily at the back of the room. If Dumbledore had deliberately caused all this, then Dumbledore should definitely try to sort it out, he reasoned. Sighing, he realised that the Headmaster most likely wouldn't allow the Occlumency to stop again, though. Not after what happened last time.  
  
His eyes wandered around the room. There was the dusty old sorting hat on its shelf, Fawkes shimmering on his perch, preening himself. The portraits, most of which were all either asleep, or trying to sleep - if that was still possible with all the noise Snape was making.  
  
Phineas Nigellus, though, was wide-awake, and was staring at him, with an amused expression on his face. Harry frowned. Yes, he would find this funny-  
  
'Congratulations, boy!' Phineas smirked, 'I hoped someone else would take over my great-great grandson's familial duties.'  
  
Harry was confused. 'What duties?'  
  
'Keeping the beast-half-breeds on their toes of course,' he remarked coolly. 'The other one, though, you succeeded in upsetting rather than angering, you know-'  
  
Other one? Harry frowned. Of course - Lupin!  
  
'What did he do?' he asked, worried.  
  
'Oh - he was deplorable,' said Phineas slyly, 'even before the call of the wild took him over-'  
  
'The call?' Harry's eyes widened. 'Where is he now?' he asked quickly.  
  
'Oh - don't worry, boy, Albus took care of him,' smirked the picture, stroking his pointed beard. 'I presume he didn't fancy another wild animal ripping up his office.'  
  
'Oh.' Harry was going to ask him to explain, but had a sudden thought. 'Can I ask you a question about Snape -er- sir?'  
  
'Harry!'  
  
It was the headmaster's voice. The room went silent as Harry looked around at him. Dumbledore's face wore a very grave expression.  
  
'Is it true, Harry, you tried to take your life?'  
  
Harry began to tremble. In all the drama, he had almost forgotten.  
  
'I - I - didn't know what I was thinking - sir. I have been - pretty low' He said quietly, feeling terrible.  
  
'Professor Snape says he had to bring you back.'  
  
'Yes - sir.'  
  
'Harry,' Dumbledore said softly, 'why didn't you tell someone you were feeling this way? Your friends?'  
  
Harry swallowed. 'Ron always seemed so busy,' he said, 'training for Quidditch - I couldn't. And Hermione, well, she's been in a bit of a temper, with all the revising. And then she got angry, and said she didn't know what was wrong with my-' Harry trailed off. This sounded so awful. He had somehow managed to convince himself his friends hated him. Hermione had gone to a lot of trouble to find him a rare book on Occlumency. Neville had always asked how he was. And Ginny. Even Seamus was worried about him-  
  
Snape's eyes were slicing into him. Of course, the professor hated it when people got emotional.  
  
And then he had to save you, AND make himself ill doing it.  
  
Harry shrunk back. Now all this would only make him the Potions Master see him as weaker and more pathetic than ever.  
  
'Professor Dumbledore - where's Lupin?' he asked in a small voice.  
  
'He's doing a small favour for professor Snape at the moment,' said Dumbledore, his eyes showing the lightest of twinkles.  
  
For a second Snape looked as if he was going to smirk. His eyes flitted away to one corner of the room, before returning to Harry. 'Why, Harry, I thought you hated him-' he sneered suspiciously.  
  
Harry stiffened. He would have preferred an angrily spat 'Potter!' Snape had spoken his first name in such a tone, that it had caused an unpleasant chill to run right through him.  
  
'I don't really hate him, professor Snape,' said Harry quietly. 'I just let my emotions get out of control.'  
  
Snape raised an eyebrow, before straightening up and looking toward the desk. 'See what I mean, Headmaster?' he smirked triumphantly, 'Potter will do this again and again. You cannot teach this boy self control. He is as much a liability as he was when he first set his foot in Hogwarts.'  
  
Harry stared at him, his eyes beginning to narrow.  
  
'He is a danger to everyone in this school for as long as he remains here.' Snape continued, his eyes flashing maliciously. He could sense the boy's heart rate was speeding up again.  
  
Dangerously.  
  
Harry glared. Look at him smirking and sneering, the greasy, sadistic, slimy, evil.evil.  
  
He felt just like he did when he had punched Malfoy after that Quidditch match. But this time he felt like aiming higher than Snape's gut. He would go right for the git's huge nose.  
  
Not that it would be difficult target. After all, Sirius had probably felt like breaking it loads of times. Or had broken it loads of times-  
  
Then as swiftly he felt temper begin to stiffen his body, and his hands clench into fists by his sides, he realised something else in him was trying to make him listen, force his temper back. It was as if a shield had appeared and suddenly prevented his feelings from going any further. He took a shaky, deep breath.  
  
He felt his chest begin to relax, and his hands unclench. He breathed in some more. His heart began to slow.  
  
'I don't hate Lupin.' repeated Harry slowly, surprising himself at just how calm his voice sounded. 'And I don't hate my father. Or Sirius.'  
  
'Well, there's a promising start,' sneered Snape mockingly.  
  
'And - Professor Snape?' Harry made the professor lock eye contact before continuing. The black pools glinted maliciously at him. 'I don't hate you. I refuse you to make me. From now- I-I won't let you.'  
  
Dumbledore's mouth twitched into the faintest smile. He knew Severus would never have seen that one coming. Harry a danger to everyone?  
  
'Once an arrogant brat, always an arrogant brat, Potter!' hissed Snape, his temper rising.  
  
Harry had to swallow six years of battered Gryffindor pride for this. Snape's freezing gaze was still boring into him. Still Harry refused to flinch or look away.  
  
'Not unless the arrogant brat realises what he is, and wants to do something about it,' he replied carefully. Snape eyes seemed to loose their gleam. He flushed an ugly colour. Harry waited for the sarcastic quip.  
  
'You're pathetic!' Snape snarled, before leaping up to stalk up and down like a mad panther again.  
  
Harry blinked several times. Had he really out-stared Snape?  
  
'Truly wild, untameable, and vicious,' muttered Phineas in his reedy voice, his eyes following the stormy, black shape of the Potions Master warily. 'A threat to the wizarding world if ever there was one.'  
  
'Severus-' the Headmaster called, watching his employee pace. 'SEVERUS!'  
  
Snape had deliberately ignored him, twice. Dumbledore guessed this to mean Severus's tolerance level to be somewhere near breaking point. Now, the old wizard mused, in which direction will this confrontation go?  
  
Harry broke the silence first. 'Yes, I am pathetic, sir. You tried to stop me from doing a stupid, stupid thing. But I was still stupid enough to do it.'  
  
Snape froze, but didn't make any effort to turn round to face the boy.  
  
He continued, stammering slightly, 'Y-you have every right, t-to take a hundred points, sir - or more.' Harry had never felt so serious. 'Because I'm s-sorry. I am very sorry I made you ill.'  
  
Snape hissed. A hundred points from Gryffindor. It was very tempting, indeed. But damn the boy! He was being honest for once: not lying, not even mocking! If he didn't look at him, perhaps he could bear to be more reasonable. He tried to imagine addressing any other student.  
  
Just any other student-  
  
'Well, you were moronic, and pathetic. But unbelievably, you did one thing right,' he said quietly. 'You were actually in the right place at the right time, thus ensuring your selfish act only endangered my life, and not the whole of Hogwarts.'  
  
And on these words, without looking at Harry, Snape swept from the office, slamming the door behind him.  
  
Harry reeled. That last speech was not without its venom, but for Snape its tone had been that of a compliment. He looked up to find the headmaster smiling at him.  
  
'That was well done, Harry,' he said quietly.  
  
'B-But - he didn't take the points!' Harry stammered.  
  
Dumbledore's eyes twinkled, 'Odd, isn't it? And you didn't lose your temper. Maybe you don't bring out the worst in each other after all.'  
  
Harry paused to wonder. So when did Snape take points? When he had done something wrong, of course. The first potions lesson he had had, unreasonable though Snape was, he had still dared to back chat the teacher.  
  
But what about all those fights with the Slytherins while waiting outside for potions? Did Snape really only take off points unfairly in front of the Slytherins? Harry found this very hard to believe.  
  
Dumbledore's eyes were watching him serenely.  
  
'You are a young adult now, Harry, and one with a great burden on your shoulders,' he said. 'And adults learn that it is often dangerous to ignore the wider picture, and allow their own feelings to cloud judgement.'  
  
Harry nodded, and bowed his head.  
  
The picture behind him, though, sniggered loudly.  
  
Dumbledore cleared his throat. Harry thought he looked rather sad. 'But, I'll warn you Harry,' he said quietly. 'Professor Snape will always be likely to bend this rule.'  
  
'Double standards!' coughed Phineas.  
  
'Phineas!' Dumbledore warned the picture, frowning suddenly. 'I daresay if you had ever been placed in a position such as Severus's, your temper would be just as volatile. I thought you as a fellow Slytherin would be able to sympathise.'  
  
Phineas huffed loudly.  
  
Dumbledore's expression turned grave again. 'And Harry. I warn you, that what I have to say next is of great importance. You will be sworn to secrecy. You must never tell others what I am about to tell you.'  
  
Harry looked into the solemn eyes, and nodded nervously. 'I swear.'  
  
Dumbledore picked up his wand, stood and muttered several words. A golden force field sprang up around them. The old wizard's eyes pierced into the boy.  
  
'This is to ensure nothing else can hear what I am about to say, Harry.'  
  
Harry stared wide-eyed at the field. It was swirling all around them, like glitter in a misty fluid. He could only just make out the room behind.  
  
'Your Occlumency skills have advanced to the level where Lord Voldemort is now unable to send you visions, Harry,' he said carefully. 'You are now safe from his prying - providing you continue to control your temper.'  
  
Harry was astounded. With so few compliments from Snape, it had been hard for him to tell if he was improving at all. Dumbledore smiled at him briefly, but his next tones were even more serious.  
  
'And Harry, what you have found out today about professor Snape must be kept a secret, from everyone. Voldemort must never find out.'  
  
Harry was confused. 'That he stopped me from poisoning myself?'  
  
Dumbledore shook his head, and leaned closer. 'Harry - Lord Voldemort doesn't know exactly why the curse rebounded.'  
  
Harry swallowed hard. Had he indeed put Snape's life in more danger than he thought? For fifteen whole years?  
  
'But, my mother's love?' he gasped. 'Didn't that cause it?'  
  
Dumbledore smiled gently. 'Oh, in a way, Harry, in a way,' he said mysteriously.  
  
'But why would it make professor Snape ill, then?' Harry was not sure if he was becoming less or more confused.  
  
'Ah, Harry, to use your own blood in any potion is not without its risks. If the blood contains certain immunities, the drinker of the potion will inherit them.'  
  
'Like having jabs protecting against diseases?' said Harry, astounded. The wizarding world had inoculations?  
  
'In a way.' Dumbledore nodded. 'But as I said, it is more risky. The owner of the blood wouldn't normally want to use it in such a way, as they would create a weakness for themselves, particularly if any deadly poison entered their potion drinker's blood-'  
  
'But - Snape's threatened to poison me in class before,' Harry exclaimed. 'W-Why would he do that?'  
  
Dumbledore frowned dismissively. 'An idle threat perhaps? More likely the ingredients were not as potent, Harry, as I know how he hates feeling unwell.' His moustache twitched. 'Now please remember - for Professor Snape, and your own sake, you must keep all of this secret.' He stood up, and removed the glittering forcefield with a wave of his hand.  
  
Harry saw all the odds stack up against him. For how many more different reasons, could his potions' professor claim the right to hate him? It appeared he had been doomed from the very beginning.  
  
And the biggest question, why even would such a man choose to weaken himself to save the son of James Potter?  
  
'Albus, what on earth have you got to say to a boy that we can't be trusted to hear?' Phineas's tone seemed rather petulant.  
  
'Oh, Phineas, really,' said Dumbledore coolly, his eyes twinkling. 'Surely you're not so frivolous as to have been interested in hearing the real truth behind Severus's unfortunate hair condition?'  
  
Harry clapped a hand to his mouth, and held his nose in an attempt to stifle a snort of laughter. Phineas tried his best to hide a look of contempt.  
  
'Albus, you are exceedingly immature, sometimes,' he sneered.  
  
'Probably why I get on so well with children, Phineas,' he smiled cheerfully. 'Maybe it is the secret to my popularity. Anyhow - chocolate frog, Harry?'  
  
Phineas snorted and turned his back on them, 'I thought all of Snape's problems were hereditary,' he growled. 'Just taking one look at that portrait would tell anyone that!'  
  
Harry remembered where Snape's eyes had wandered earlier. He turned to the corner. It was the darkest part of the office, away from all windows. A dark framed portrait hung there, half obscured by shelves. Its paint appeared to be swirling around. He looked back curiously at Dumbledore, who frowned.  
  
'Sir - what sort of blood has Professor Snape-'  
  
'I'm sure professor Snape would think you have discovered more than enough about him today, Harry,' he cut in firmly. 'But,' his eyes twinkled, 'in asking that, you have reminded me to do something.'  
  
Drawing a handful of something out of his pocket, Dumbledore crossed to the corner in question, muttered something indistinguishable under his breath and threw a powdery substance at the frame.  
  
There was a sudden explosion, which caused Harry to start back and shut his eyes, and the silvery instruments to rattle madly on the shelves. When he looked up again he found that standing next to Dumbledore was none other than a rather dishevelled Lupin.  
  
'Feel any better now Remus?' asked Dumbledore brightly.  
  
'Yes, Headmaster.It has helped me out a great deal.I dearly miss those fights with Sirius,' he smiled ruefully.  
  
'What was the outcome, need I ask?'  
  
'Three nil. To Gryffindor, of course. It has been rather therapeutic to-'  
  
Lupin trailed off. He had sensed who else was in the room. Harry watched his smile fade slightly as he looked round.  
  
To his shock the teenager saw the man was injured. Lupin looked as if a tiger had clawed him. Three long scratches were scored deeply across his face. His lip was cut and bleeding, and one of his hands was badly gashed.  
  
Harry fought back against the darkness, the months of coldness, the slow weeks of numb hibernation. He allowed all the pain, the terror, the guilt, to hit him full on. It was raw and stinging, but also welcome. He had been rescued. He could still feel love. He was still human.  
  
Lupin winced painfully and staggered back. Tears began to prickle in his eyes; because the boy had bounded across the room and almost knocked them both over with a bone-crushing hug.  
  
'Oh Remus. I'm sorry. I'm so sorry,' Harry choked.  
  
'So am I, Harry,' sighed Lupin gently. 


	8. Tea and Syzygy

Chapter 8:Tea and Syzygy  
  
A/N: Sorry for the delay - writer's block attacked me! ( Many thanks to all my reviewers so far! ___________________________________________________________  
  
Harry stretched, and stood up stiffly. He had lay in thought for so long, he hadn't noticed how much the cold of the flagstones had seeped into his body.  
  
The sky was what had been holding his attention for the past hour. It was one of the only things, which helped to soothe him now. The sky seemed timeless, infinite, and peaceful. Where the sky went on unchanged year by year, Hogwarts was gradually becoming more warlike. There was a constant uneasy atmosphere inside the school. It filled every corridor and classroom with ominous tension, causing voices to drop to cautious whispers.  
  
The shadows in every corner seeming to fall darker than ever before. So much darker, in fact, it was almost as if there were beings, or things staring out from them. Spying on Hogwarts with many thousands of little black, beady eyes.  
  
Eyes that looked very like Kreachers.  
  
Watching and waiting for the right moment to slip their knife in.  
  
The thought bothered Harry more than he liked to admit. It reminded him of just how much everything had changed in six years. How much he had changed. And this was why, with milder weather on the way, he chose to spend as much time outside as possible.  
  
It was a cold, but sunny Saturday morning. Harry's gaze had been selecting and following certain small white wisps of cloud, which were being tugged along by the fresh breeze. The damp flowerbed he was laying next to was stuffed with yellow and white Daffodils, and all shades of Crocuses.  
  
'Hey Harry! See what I've found!'  
  
Harry's gaze drifted downwards and across the flowerbed to meet the eager, shining eyes of his dorm mate. Neville stood up, muddy kneed, with a trowel in one hand and what appeared to be a small lump of mud in the other.  
  
'How's the bulb finding going, Neville?' he smiled.  
  
'Great!' Neville clumped over in his Wellington Boots to show Harry a small pot full of little muddy balls. 'These are Spear Alliums. If you look carefully you can just see the little red shoot tips poking out of the soil.'  
  
Harry squinted into the dark little container. After staring up at the sky for so long he was rather sun blinded. He blinked several times, but all he could see was a large blotch of purple. 'Oh, yeah - I see them!' he lied.  
  
'I'm going to pot these up.' he said happily. 'And do you remember that little plant I showed everyone on the train?'  
  
'Er.yeah, Neville.' said Harry seriously. 'You mean the one that you poked, getting everyone splattered with horrible, stinky green goo?'  
  
Neville looked up uncertainly, but when he saw Harry was grinning, he giggled. 'That's the one. It's almost a foot tall now, and I've even managed to breed from it!'  
  
'So, how may of them have you got now?'  
  
'Five,' he beamed. 'Professor Sprout is interested in buying some. But.er-'  
  
'You've got attached to them?' asked Harry.  
  
Neville turned slightly pink. 'Yeah. They are rare because they are very difficult to breed. If I've managed to get this far with them, I might be able to breed more.'  
  
'You go ahead. I'll have to come and inspect them someday,'  
  
Neville's eyes lit up. 'Really? That would be cool! And I've also just got this bright pink carnivorous pitcher plant, that,' he paused to giggle, and then whispered, 'that, reminds me a little of Umbridge.'  
  
Harry smirked as he imagined what the Centaurs must have done to her. According to Mr. Weasley she was still quite jumpy. 'I'll bet that old cow lives on insects too!'  
  
'Yeah,' replied Neville, grinning. 'I can show you now if you like? I have to take these back to greenhouse two anyway.'  
  
Harry followed, admiring Neville for being strong enough to think positively despite everything that had happened. He couldn't help feeling rather ashamed of his recent actions, and his tendency to let things get the better of him. If he ever began to feel down, he would always go to see Neville now, and leave Hermione and Ron to their bickering.  
  
He cast a sideways glance at the Quidditch pitch as they walked past. A few Slytherins were practising goal shots. Malfoy was not among them. Harry felt himself scanning the skies. He was the Seeker, maybe he was higher up in the sky, scanning for a Snitch. When he couldn't spot him, Harry felt his fingers instinctively clutch around the handle of his wand. Next to him Neville had begun to speak again.  
  
'-last lesson. Don't you think so Harry?'  
  
'Huh?'  
  
'Er- Professor Brown, better than Professor Lupin was.'  
  
Harry's brow creased in thought. 'Do you mean at teaching?'  
  
Neville blinked. It was hard work having a conversation when his friend's mind kept on wandering. 'Er - yes.'  
  
Harry smiled awkwardly. 'Oh, I don't know. She's good, but she's also a bit sterner than Lupin. And she doesn't give out chocolate.'  
  
Neville flushed slightly before smiling. 'I suppose so.'  
  
Harry grinned. He felt like prodding Neville a bit further on this. Maybe even asking him if he rather liked the sound of the Professor's Welsh accent-  
  
Suddenly there was a sound of rippling material, as a green robed figure streaked down from the sky. An outstretched hand bashed into Neville's arm, causing his pot of bulbs to scatter everywhere.  
  
'Pot-ty and Bot-ty, up a tree-' came the loud and gleeful jeer.  
  
'FUCK YOU, MALFOY!' screamed Neville suddenly, making Harry almost jump out of his skin.  
  
'Ignore him Neville, he's not worth it,' he said quickly, moving down to rake together the scattered bulbs. 'He's nothing but a coward, sitting up there on his broomstick!'  
  
'I know he is!' muttered Neville, clenching and unclenching his fists. 'That's what I keep telling myself. But there's only so much I can take!'  
  
'Yeah, I know,' replied Harry sadly. Then he smirked, 'But don't forget you beat him in your OWLS overall. I expect he's still screwed up about that.'  
  
'Yeah,' Neville breathed. 'Yeah, I did.' He let out a small laugh before bending down to help Harry pick up the bulbs. Despite his anger, Neville still handled the bulbs with great care, placing them gently back in the pot.  
  
His friend paused to study him - Harry had just been carelessly throwing the bulbs back into the pot. He bit his lip, and feeling slightly guilty began to pick the bulbs up a bit more gently. Harry was only too aware of the fact that if it had been him, and not Neville, Malfoy had dive-bombed; he would have probably thrown the bulbs at him in a fit of rage.  
  
Or would he?  
  
'-Control your anger, discipline your mind-'  
  
Harry scowled as the angered voice of Snape hissed through his head. Ha! The bastard! How could the man dare say something like this, when he himself poisoned the air with his own hate and grudges?  
  
The hypocrite his mother told him to thank. Or had that been his mother? Harry frowned. She looked quite a bit older than she did in the- Well, he could picture her less clearly than he could a few days ago.  
  
Harry felt a sudden twinge of doubt. Snape thought he had added too much venom or something to the antidote. Said he was probably hallucinating. Talking rubbish.  
  
Maybe he had been hallucinating. From what he could remember, venom was weird stuff when used as an antidote. Weird enough that it was used as an antidote-  
  
'Come on Harry!'  
  
Harry started and looked around. Neville was already some way down the path. Hastily he stood up, dusted off his knees and caught up with him.  
  
As they entered Greenhouse Two Harry caught sight of a thin figure wrapped in glittery shawls. Sibyl Trelawney was tending to her tea plants, submitting each leaf to her goggle-eyed scrutiny, as if they were already mushed up in the bottom of a cup.  
  
Subconsciously he found himself wanting to avoid a confrontation. The mental image of her rising out of Dumbledore's pensieve still disturbed him considerably, and he was glad he didn't have to take Divination anymore.  
  
Fortunately Neville shared Harry's wish, (He had a guilty complex about all the teacups of hers he'd managed to break) and so the two teenagers crept into another aisle where the jungle-like leaf cover allowed them to tiptoe past unseen.  
  
At the far end of the greenhouse, (after they had managed to battle past Theodore Nott's section of Screeching Leech plants) Neville finally stopped and drew aside a piece of green screening. Harry blinked.  
  
The Mimbulus was huge! It was now planted in a very hefty looking, shallow earthenware pot. And clustered around the bloated base of the plant were five baby Mimbulus, er, plants. Harry wasn't sure if they could be called seedlings or offshoots, or anything plant like, really. To him the plant still looked like a diseased organ.  
  
Neville noticed his friend was looking warily at the large pus filled wart that was pulsing on top of the adult plant.  
  
'Er, don't worry about that,' he smiled nervously. 'I wouldn't dare poke it now it's reached this size!'  
  
'So - er - are you going to pot up the baby ones?' enquired Harry, his eyes still lingering on the wart.  
  
'Yeah, I've got some special pots for them. And, oh, and have a look at this Pitcher Plant.' Neville took out a petri dish and a pair of tweezers from a shelf under the bench. Removing the lid from the dish he gingerly picked up a large dead dung beetle. 'Cephalotus atrox. These Dungs aren't its natural diet, but it seems to prefer them to soldier ants,' he explained.  
  
Harry watched as Neville moved over to a fat pink thing sitting among the swamp plant section of his bench. He couldn't help shuddering as he noted that the wide mouthed plant did indeed look like it was smiling horribly.  
  
'It hasn't said hem-hem yet, has it?' he remarked dryly.  
  
Neville looked around just as he was about to drop the beetle in the plant's mouth. 'Er, I - Oh!'  
  
There was a horrible gurgling sound.  
  
'Whoops,' said Harry.  
  
Neville sighed. 'That's the fourth pair of tweezers it's managed to suck in!' he complained. Professor Sprout's not going to believe it.'  
  
'Can't you fish them out?'  
  
Neville chuckled. 'Not likely. With the potent acid it's got in it, they're probably already half dissolved!'  
  
Harry pulled a face. But it was for more than one reason. Hearing the word dissolved reminded him he had a potions essay, AND revision to do.  
  
'Oh no, he groaned. 'Potions on Monday, Neville. And I haven't even started looking for books yet!'  
  
'Oh God,' was the long-suffering reply. 'And the textbook this year is so hard to understand!'  
  
'Well, no surprise there, just as we expected,' muttered Harry. 'I think I better go back to the dorms to make a start on it now.'  
  
'Okay. I'll be up shortly, I've just got to pot the Alliums up.'  
  
'Sure. Oh, and thanks Neville - for showing me your plants. They're brilliant.'  
  
'Thanks Harry!' beamed the teenager, putting the petri dish of beetles back on the shelf.  
  
The Umbridge plant let out loud belch.  
  
Harry couldn't help grinning. 'See you later then.'  
  
He checked for Trelawney and was relieved to see she had gone. This saved him from going down the less friendly aisle of plants a second time. Once he got outside he slowed down slightly. It was such a shame to go inside on a day like this.  
  
His thoughts wandered back to his - hallucination. He frowned. There was only one thing for it, ask somebody who might know a bit more about it than he did. Hermione scoffed at anything mystical, and Trelawney was out of the question. He needed someone who would listen and not laugh.  
  
So it was between Luna and Firenze. Both of them liked to talk cryptic, but at least they would listen. He stopped still to consider their possible reactions, until he suddenly realised he was well inside the entrance hall, and what was worse - lingering rather close to the dungeon stairwells.  
  
What in Merlin was he doing?  
  
In a split second he had made up his mind, and strode back across the deserted hallway toward the corridor directly opposite the dungeon stairs, which led to the Centaur's divination room.  
  
It was a long, straight corridor - and it seemed to take forever to walk it. He kept on walking, his back straight and eyes set firmly ahead of him until he reached the corner. Once he'd gone round it, Harry's figure seemed to slouch slightly as he let out a great sigh of relief.  
  
Trembling and slightly pale, Harry glanced furtively behind him, listening carefully before approaching the classroom door.  
  
He had a horrid feeling that someone had just watched him walk the entire length of that corridor. Staring fixedly all the way.  
  
And the only way they could have done that, was by standing inside the gloomy stairwell he had almost gone down.  
  
Harry opened the door, and stepped gingerly into the eerie gloom of a moonlit forest. The ground was soft and mossy, and he looked down just in time to avoid trampling through a large clump of snowdrops.  
  
Harry paused, squinting into the trees, rather disturbed that he had happily swapped the feeling of one pair of eyes staring at him, for the feeling of being watched by many more. He took another step forward.  
  
CRACK!  
  
Harry grimaced. Of all the twigs strewn on the forest floor, he had to step on the one that would make the most noise as it broke!  
  
Instantly, a sharp warning yelp of a fox rang out to his left. Harry glanced around quickly. Seeing nothing, he turned back to find a pale and bulky torso had appeared directly in front of him.  
  
Harry jumped, his heart leaping into his throat. 'Don't do that!' he gasped out as he looked directly up into the professor's intense and unblinking gaze.  
  
'I am sorry, Harry Potter. I didn't mean to startle. We Centaurs tread softly.'  
  
'And humans don't,' smiled Harry ruefully.  
  
'Most humans don't.'  
  
The teenager opened his mouth to speak, but couldn't quite form the question he wanted to ask. What was it he wanted to ask?  
  
'I.er.' Inwardly Harry cursed himself for not being prepared. What was he going to say? 'Oh, hello Firenze! Do you happen to know if I really had a conversation with my dead mother while tripping on snake venom?'  
  
'I'm sorry I bothered you,' he said hastily. 'I'll just-'  
  
'Not to worry. I have been expecting you.'  
  
'You have?' was the surprised response.  
  
'Following a foretelling of some disquiet. You doubt.'  
  
'I just wanted to ask,' Harry began nervously, 'if there is any truth in visions?'  
  
Firenze closed his eyes, before saying gently. 'I believe you do not wish me to answer a question on visions.'  
  
Harry half fancied retorting, 'did the planets tell you?' But he checked himself just in time. 'I don't?'  
  
The Centaur opened his eyes, and Harry shuffled under the scrutiny of his staring blue gaze.  
  
Hesitantly Harry began to describe his feelings, his senses and most of what he had heard the night of his attempted suicide. Most, as in he carefully left out the part about Snape. And the fact that it was attempted suicide. His feelings of uncertainty were not helped by Firenze's stance. All through his speech, the Centaur insisted on staring intently up at the night sky, stargazing again.  
  
'So you see, it could have been the venom antidote-' Harry faltered before trailing off.  
  
Was the creature even listening?  
  
Harry shrugged as Firenze still continued to stand motionless, his eyes wandering across the distant constellations. 'Sorry I bothered you,' he whispered, and turned to leave.  
  
What would it mean to a Centaur anyway, his little story? It was just another 'tiny human accident,' most probably.  
  
'You intend to leave before I answer your question, Harry Potter?' came the calm voice.  
  
Harry bit back a smile of relief. 'No, Firenze.' He turned round to find the Centaur regarding him with slight interest. 'Ha,' Harry thought, 'maybe they do think about more things than celestial objects?'  
  
'No venom can affect what the planets foretell,' was the simple reply.  
  
Harry couldn't help frowning. Here was the obscurity. 'And what-'  
  
'Only the planets know their pattern through the skies. They hint at what to come, and with each hour comes a different portent.'  
  
'A portent-' echoed Harry vaguely. What was scary was the fact that even Hermione couldn't help him with this one.  
  
'They do not concern themselves with individual human fate.'  
  
Harry sighed.  
  
'Though they can warn of premature death,' the Centaur finished in a gentle tone.  
  
'Premature death?' Harry blinked.  
  
'Yes. I have consulted the planets for your reading. They have foretold your increasing strength, and not of death. You were close, but fate was against it. I believe you humans call this a near death experience.'  
  
'Oh,' was all Harry could find to say. Then it was true? Could he believe it?  
  
There was a short silence as Harry fought with a question, which had sprung unwanted into his head. It was no good; he had to ask it.  
  
'Firenze? Was - er - Sirius's death foretold?'  
  
There was a short pause. 'Not his death. The death of a wizard.'  
  
'But his own reading,' whispered Harry. 'Was it bad?'  
  
'It warned of Betrayal,' replied Firenze shortly. 'No more specific.'  
  
Harry felt like throwing something. The feeling of hopelessness and  
frustration was threatening to well up in him once again. But he could  
see why Hermione scoffed at the readings. They were not wrong. They  
were vague.  
  
Vague, but also bitterly true. The reading wouldn't have helped avert premature death. But the ruthlessness of a sister and a 'loyal' House Elf was made only too plain in retrospect.  
  
'The positioning of the moon, and the nearest planets that day foretold it. Yet this reading is almost mirrored today. The same celestial objects, a mirrored positioning. The moon lower, two constellations higher and duller. Mercury positioned-'  
  
The Centaur trailed off as his eyes fixed upon the sky again.  
  
Harry tried to remember the significance of Mercury. It was one of the brightest planets in the sky, yet was always obscured by the sun when at its brightest, and always in shadow when closest to the Earth.  
  
He sniffed. This didn't help him at all. Centaurs were impossible.  
  
'Thank you Firenze,' he murmured. The only response Harry got was a swish of a tail.  
  
Harry carefully picked his way back around the snowdrops (He still felt slightly guilty about Neville's Spear Alliums)  
  
And then just as he placed a hand on the doorknob he heard a hoof thud against the ground.  
  
'Do not fear Mercury's protective shadow when it falls near.'  
  
Harry's eyes wandered back to the Centaur. Firenze's pale hide and hair were glowing eerily in the moonlight making him appear almost a ghostly figure. The creature was still staring resolutely at the sky.  
  
'Every planet is half in sun, half in shade.'  
  
Harry nodded, even though Firenze wasn't looking at him. 'Thanks.'  
  
Back outside Harry had to wait until his eyes adjusted to the strong sunlight streaming into the corridor. Frowning, he set off in the direction of the library to get the Potions books.  
  
What in Merlin did Firenze mean? He wondered idly if Luna would make some sense out of it. 


	9. Bitter and Twisted

Chapter 9: Bitter and Twisted.  
  
In a certain classroom deep within Hogwarts' dungeons, a certain professor was once again becoming irritable. It was Monday, and the final double lesson of the day with the sixth years. Sixth years who were making as much noise in the corridor outside his room as the Firsts, (And there were -only- twelve taking the NEWT this year.) It would always be the unfortunate outcome of mixing such houses as Gryffindor and Slytherin.  
  
'Such a row those students make. Incessantly wittering, believing that noise is preferable over silence. Young fools.' A thin face scowled as its owner scrawled a final line of words on the parchment.  
  
He had not been like them in his sixth year. He had preferred staying silent, and listening in to other people's conversations. He still believed far more could be learnt this way. Pity so few of the students followed this example.  
  
__________  
  
Harry quietly joined the back of the boisterous line of students.  
  
'Well if it isn't no-friends Potty boy,' hissed Draco Malfoy, turning round. 'What - got bored of lurking in the cabbage patches?'  
  
Ironically, Draco was minus the usual Crabbe and Goyle, who had unsurprisingly failed to gain high enough grades to do a NEWT in Potions.  
  
'Go screw yourself Malfoy,' returned Harry coolly.  
  
'Crying over Black again, were you?' Malfoy leered. He screwed up his face and rubbed his eyes, Oh, Boo-hoo, oh Mudblood, oh Weasel, somebody feel sorry for me.'  
  
Harry smiled politely at him. 'Yeah, I was actually. I got really depressed about it. But I feel a bit better now. Thanks for asking.' Harry turned as the classroom door swung open. 'See you in potions, Malfoy.'  
  
As Harry walked in the dungeon he smiled to himself. And to think once, he had actually let comments like that wind him up!  
  
Snape cast a quizzical look over his students as they filtered in. He couldn't help noticing that while Malfoy had a particularly ugly scowl on his face, Potter, though looking rather pale and tired, was actually smiling faintly to himself.  
  
Potter - smiling - in his dungeon?  
  
Hermione had been at the front of the queue. Harry caught up with her. Ron, of course didn't take potions anymore, and was quite happy about it.  
  
'Where have you been?' she hissed as they got out her books.'  
  
'Finishing off Potions homework,' whispered Harry.  
  
'But you were working on that yesterday,' she frowned at him. 'And the day before! Don't tell me you've actually decided to swot and read books?'  
  
'I can make an effort over something if I want to, you know,' he hissed back.  
  
Hermione stared at him, wondering what Ron would say if he found out. It had been the boys' code of honour never to try more than they had to in potions.  
  
Harry glanced round and smiled as Neville sat next to him. Lavender Brown had also appeared next to him. They were the only four Gryffindors left taking potions; which left them in the minority - there were twice as many Slytherins.  
  
'Quieten down!' called Snape.  
  
Harry felt himself tense at hearing the voice. This was the first potions lesson since his suicide attempt in Snape's office, and that awful revelation about his blood. And Snape had still not taken a single point off him for it.  
  
So if anything was going to change, it was going to change this lesson.  
  
'Today, and over the next few weeks, due to the nearing of examinations, I have decided to set you all a series of tasks we have already covered, to aid your revision.'  
  
Harry relaxed slightly. If he had done it before, he had a slight chance of doing better this time.  
  
'However-' continued Snape more smoothly, 'considering that you are all NEWT students now, and have already done these tasks before, I will be expecting you all to gain no less than full marks.'  
  
He scanned their apprehensive faces with clear distaste, his eyes glinting. 'To encourage your success, I may of course consider handing out a detention - or three - to those who fail-'  
  
Harry tensed again, and looked down. He didn't want to witness that cold black-eyed stare this time. This lesson onwards, he was sure, would be where Snape would plot the start of his downfall.  
  
He cast a sideways look at Neville. His performance in his Potions OWL had astonished everyone. Incredibly, it seemed as if it was mostly nerves, and not lack of abilities, which had caused him to melt cauldrons so often. And when Snape had been absent from the exam, the boy had surprised even himself. Neville Longbottom had passed his potions, and he had a good grade.  
  
Harry noticed that although Neville looked apprehensive, he wasn't terrified anymore. After what had happened to him last summer, even Snape had to try harder to rattle him. He was more focused, more serious, and had begun to believe in himself.  
  
The instructions had appeared on the board, and the store cupboard had unlocked. Unsurprisingly, the instructions were for the three most difficult potions of the year. Hermione had already guessed, of course, and muttered them under her breath.  
  
They were very quick potions to brew, but required no less than pinpoint accuracy with measuring the ingredients. They were, the Concoction of Faith, the Ageing potion, and the Claw of Darkness draught. Neville kindly offered to fetch the ingredients for them all, and wandered off to join the queue.  
  
Harry froze when he read the name of the last potion. This would have the effect of revealing all the times in your life you had been affected by things aligned with darkness. Whoever took this today would as good as share their past with the whole class.  
  
Immediately Harry's thoughts turned to Voldemort. He scowled. Could he ever go a day now without something reminding him of that subject.?  
  
'Your turn this time Harry,' Hermione whispered excitedly. 'Maybe this is the chance to find out what's exactly in your blood!'  
  
Harry blinked. Of course, Snape never usually bothered with revision lessons - but this one was the exception. All because it accommodated his devious little plan!  
  
He would want to cause Harry as much discomfort as possible in revenge for his giving him a fever. And where better to do it than in double Potions in front of a gang of Slytherins?  
  
Pansy and Draco especially would ensure that the gossip spread fast.  
  
And the fact that whatever 'creature's' blood was running in Snape's veins had failed to gain him popularity, Harry imagined Hogwarts once again turning on him like they had with his Parselmouth ability, whispering rumours behind his back. Could he cope with more rumours?  
  
Harry chanced a glance at the vindictive Potions Master himself, who was sat behind his desk, then looked quickly away. That was all he needed. He knew exactly what -that- particular smirk meant.  
  
Ron would have identified it as the smug I'm-going-to-make-you-scrub- bedpans, look. What nasty secret was Snape holing up for him?  
  
He felt sick. But making an excuse to get out of the classroom never worked with Snape. If Harry said he was ill, he would just get sneered at and left to suffer. He really wished Ron still did potions; he always carried around one of his brothers' Skiving Snackboxes for emergencies.  
  
But he didn't even have a single puking pastille. This left Harry with just two choices - deliberately make the potion wrongly and likely get a 'detention or three' and extra homework, or make it properly and reveal whatever attractive 'curse' he carried for the amusement of Draco Malfoy.  
  
'Well, Harry?' Hermione was looking at him oddly. 'Wouldn't you be glad to know?'  
  
'No,' he muttered darkly. 'Snape would enjoy it far too much.'  
  
'But it's your turn,' she hissed. 'And I really don't fancy being petrified for a third time!'  
  
The effects of the Basilisk stare in their second year had been temporarily recreated when Hermione had volunteered to take the potion. She had gone as rigid as a statue, and this had given the Slytherins a good opportunity to flick beetle eyes and other disgusting things at her before Snape handed round the antidote.  
  
Harry sighed wearily. Detention it would have to be. And Hermione wouldn't let him get his potion wrong, so he would have to ruin it when she wasn't looking.  
  
'Thanks Neville,' he smiled, as his friend returned with his arms full of ingredients.  
  
The Concoction of Faith was the quickest to brew. Neville's concentration reached such a level that he even failed to notice Snape's half a dozen sneers in his direction, trying to scare him into making a mistake.  
  
Half an hour later Harry's potion wasn't the ideal colour, but it would work. Neville's was passable as well. As they drank it down they waved goodbye to sanity for the next few minutes. This was because drinking Concoction of Faith would make them completely, and utterly gullible.  
  
Lavender and Hermione were desperately trying to stifle a giggling fit - they had the boys convinced that they were both really famous actresses, that the world was flat and the sea dripped off the edge, and that Snape was gay, and madly in love with Draco Malfoy.  
  
'I knew it! said Neville excitedly. 'It makes so much sense when I think about it. I mean the way Snape treats him!'  
  
'Wow, wow, wow!! Can I have your autograph, please Lavender,' cried Harry excitedly, thrusting his potions book at her, a look of wonder on his face. 'I've never met anyone really famous before! Wish I had a camera!'  
  
The Slytherins were probably telling their partners something equally funny about Harry and Neville, as Hermione noticed that many of the potion drinkers were giving them really strange, shocked and amused looks.  
  
Everyone had managed to pass the first revision task, and Snape, oddly, for once was actually looking in a tolerable mood. Harry knew why, of course, and he deliberately avoided the professor's curious stares as he mixed the second potion of the day.  
  
It had been Harry's turn to drink the aging potion last time, which hadn't been funny, as he had unintentionally made it far too strong. Instead of looking about thirty years old like Neville, Harry's hair had turned completely white, then mostly fell out.  
  
Even more embarrassing than losing half his teeth, though, was when he had tried sitting down. He had found out too late that his joints were stiff from arthritis and by then he had missed his stool and crashed to the floor.  
  
The Slytherins had not teased him about Zimmer frames and incontinence pants in a few weeks, and Harry was determined not to remind them of it.  
  
When he had finished, he glanced in the others' cauldrons. He felt a wave of relief, as Snape inspected them, and passed by without comment. His nearly looked as good as Hermiones did. But it was Hermione's turn to test.  
  
She stole a look at Lavender as they both put several drops in their mouths.  
  
It was an alarming sight; the class was suddenly half full of bewildered thirty year olds, all looking rather strange in their too-short robes. Some of the men were over six foot tall, and had stubble and sideburns. Harry couldn't help fixing his eyes on Hermione, though, who was chatting excitedly to Lavender.  
  
She made a fine looking thirty-year old-  
  
'Psst! Harry!' Neville hissed out of the corner of his mouth, his eyes widening. 'Look at Malfoy!'  
  
Harry looked across the dungeon. Draco had his chin rested in his hands, and seemed to be gazing over in their direction with a slightly glazed expression.  
  
'I think, by the looks of it he would quite fancy some older Hermione.' muttered Harry darkly, raising an eyebrow. 'How very, very ironic.'  
  
Snape swept along their row of desks just then, and stopped directly in front of Hermione, blocking Malfoy's view of her. Leering, but not meeting anyone's eyes, he placed the phials of antidote on the desk.  
  
Over the other side of the classroom, Draco had looked away scowling.  
  
'Ugh! Should we tell her?' whispered Neville apprehensively, once Snape had moved off.  
  
'Not unless you want to make her throw up,' remarked Harry, pulling a face. 'Though we could tease her that she has a secret admirer.'  
  
'Who has a secret admirer?' asked Lavender curiously, catching the end of the conversation. Hermione peered round her shoulder. They were both sixteen again.  
  
'Oh, just - somebody, in this classroom,' smirked Harry vaguely.  
  
'But-' Lavender pouted.  
  
'Silence, class!' came Snape's harsh call above the mutterings. 'I don't remember ever allowing you to prattle and gossip!'  
  
As always, he got his silence. His glittering eyes scanned them all once again.  
  
'So far, so good,' he said softly. 'The final draught as you know is extremely volatile, and should be mixed with great care. Most of you should be well past melting cauldrons, by now. However, if a certain person insists on upholding his record-'  
  
Snape's eyes slid across to Neville, who bit his lip, yet looked even more determined than ever. 'I will deal with him accordingly, after the lesson-'  
  
Snape sneered. Pansy, Draco and the rest of the Slytherins sniggered.  
  
Harry and Neville ignored them all completely.  
  
As they began the third potion, Harry noticed a change in Snape. For the first hour he had virtually ignored his most detested pupil, but now he seemed to be making up for it. To his chagrin, Harry noticed that when Hermione wasn't glancing his way, Snape was smirking at him, preventing him from slipping in any wrong ingredients. With surveillance like this, sabotage was impossible.  
  
Now he knew how Neville must have felt.  
  
Harry mused while slicing his fireweed carefully into strips, whether he could just make his potion disappear. He had made the glass in the zoo's snake house vanish, hadn't he? Even before he learnt he was magical.  
  
He willed and willed, but all he managed to do was wobble and tip over a vial of Manticore tears.  
  
This was becoming more and more ironic. Any other day he would have been ecstatic to have mixed up a potion like this. The consistency was perfect, even the colour- He frowned apprehensively at the turquoise goo. It was exactly the shade it should be.  
  
Damn, damn, and double damn-  
  
He glanced at Neville's cauldron. His potion didn't look as good, it was more bluish. It might not pass. Maybe he could persuade him to swap. He waved and leaned over the desk, trying to catch his attention, but Neville was concentrating too hard to notice anything.  
  
'Potter-' came a sneering tone.  
  
Harry looked round. Here we go-  
  
'What exactly - is this?' Snape drawled, looking disdainfully down his crooked nose into Harry's cauldron. The Slytherins whispered and nudged each other.  
  
'The Claw of Darkness draught, sir,' replied Harry tersely.  
  
'Exactly,' was the snide reply. 'So, let me see- Ah, yes - five points from Gryffindor for irritating me, accidentally getting something right, and attempting to distract your classmate in order to brag about it.'  
  
The class hushed for a moment. That was unbelievable, outrageous.  
  
'A classic,' hissed Malfoy to his partner, sniggering. The Slytherins were nodding and smirking, clearly - as ever - impressed by their head of house's audacity.  
  
Harry stared calmly back at his professor, his face blank and expressionless. He had practised this, because ever since that episode in Dumbledore's office, he had sworn Snape would never, ever, get any pleasure out of seeing him angry again.  
  
Harry continued to concentrate, knowing that next to him Hermione was most likely glaring daggers at Snape, while Neville's face would have gone white with a mixture of worry and indignation.  
  
'His heart is hammering so loudly; I am surprised the class cannot hear it. Yet outwardly, his mien tells an entirely different story. Well, well-' thought Snape, his lip curling.  
  
As he turned smartly, and stalked off the class hung in suspense, waiting for a retort to fly from Harry's mouth. Waiting for Snape's voice to sound out the familiar, curt, 'detention, Potter!'  
  
The retort didn't come.  
  
The class could only presume that Potter had been struck dumb by the unfairness of it all.  
  
'Well class,' their professor said tetchily. 'It appears that some of you may actually be beginning to use your brains. Such a great pity it took you almost six years to find them.'  
  
His narrowing eyes returned to the faces at the Gryffindor tables. 'Seeing that I would preferably want this lesson to continue without any - unfortunate - mishaps, I suggest all testers stand this side of the classroom, and spectators move into the corner by the door.'  
  
'This was it,' thought Harry. He couldn't sabotage it now. With no ingredients left, and no puking pastilles for emergencies. He was - as Fred and George might so eloquently say - utterly buggered.  
  
He had asked Snape a question, what blood he had. It had been too personal; he had crossed the line. And Snape would make sure Harry would pay for it in a big way-  
  
As the testers began to gather together at one end of the dungeon, Harry continued to stare dumbly at his lightly steaming potion.  
  
'Go on Harry!' hissed Hermione. 'That must be the best potion you've ever made!'  
  
'Remember I've got to do it too,' said Neville stoically. 'It doesn't really matter. If we've managed to get through six years of this, we can manage one more lesson.'  
  
Harry smiled gratefully at them. 'Yeah,' he said quietly. He measured out the correct amount into a vial and trudged toward the group, thinking, 'But will you still be saying that after I've drunk this stuff?' 


	10. Unpleasant Empathy

A/N: Not your usual Potions class -cough- ;-) Please review/comment. Thanks!  
  
________________________  
  
The six students lined up to face the rest of the class. Harry stared out into the dungeon gloom. His eye wandered across to Snape, who narrowed his eyes at him.  
  
'Malfoy, step forward,' he ordered.  
  
Draco advanced, making sure to cast a leer back at Harry and Neville. He swallowed the draught in one. Gagging at the taste, he stumbled on one knee.  
  
The class gasped as Draco stood up. His face was changing, his sharp nose lengthening, his body turning brown and gold. The Slytherins were awed. Where Draco had stood, now sat a haughty looking Hippogriff.  
  
He had been badly scratched by one of Hagrid's in the third year. Draco's stern eagle head looked down, and noticed his fingers had become talons, which were half a foot long, and razor sharp. He swivelled his head round, and cocked an orange eye toward the row of testers.  
  
Maybe he could use this to an advantage.  
  
Harry met the creature's cruel stare. He was certain that if a Hippogriff's beak was able to sneer, it would be showing one right now. The creature crouched, tensed, and flexed his calws. Harry glared back, and shifted.  
  
The Hippogriff screeched, and reared. Harry's hand flew to his wand pocket.  
  
'Petrificus totalus!'  
  
The Hippogriff froze just as it was about to leap forward. The testers scattered as the creature keeled over on its front, revealing a smirking Snape standing behind it. He pocketed his wand, bent over and dripped the vial of antidote into its beak.  
  
Ten seconds later, the rigid human form of Draco had reappeared, an evil grin split right across his face. Snape muttered the counter curse. The boy's face darkened, for a second before he spoke.  
  
'Oh, thanks professor,' said Draco, slyly, as Snape helped him up. 'But no thanks to that great oaf in the grounds. I think the beast was beginning to take control of me, or something.'  
  
Hermione glared at him.  
  
Two other Slytherins drank. Nothing happened. According to Hermione this was because they had had less eventful lives.  
  
'Longbottom. ' hissed Snape.  
  
Neville stepped forward nervously. His hand trembled as he tipped the contents of the vial into his mouth.  
  
Twenty seconds lapsed, and nothing happened. He sighed weakly with relief as he was dismissed, and went to join Hermione at the other end of the classroom.  
  
The other Slytherin, Theodore Nott drank. Hermione and Lavender couldn't help giggling when he changed into a Blast-Ended Skrewt, and managed to tip over several cauldrons and set fire to a desk before Snape could fire a single hex.  
  
'I'm surprised nobody died in those lessons in the third year,' sneered Draco.  
  
The class had become tense, and had began to mutter again. This last one was the one they had been waiting to see. How much 'darkness' had Potter been in contact with?  
  
'Settle down,' said Snape idly. His eyes began to glitter. 'As a precaution, I suggest that everyone remain behind me.' He whirled round, and fixed his last student with a curious gaze.  
  
'Potter!'  
  
As the last student stepped nervously forward, a terrible smile twisted the Potion Master's face. 'For an answer.to -that- question?'  
  
Harry tensed. So here he was, all alone. Again. He took one last look at Hermione, screwed up his eyes and downed the vial.  
  
The first thing he sensed was a feeling of rage. Then his stomach lurched, and his eyesight began to blur.  
  
The class watched wide-eyed as Harry's eyes began to glow bright yellow. His body was contorting before their eyes. A long neck, a pointed head, wings.  
  
'A Hungarian Horntail!' gasped Hermione.  
  
The black dragon hissed at her, flame flickering out its nostrils. Its tail coiled round, and crushed several desks into the wall.  
  
Several Slytherins were whimpering. 'Shut up!' Snape snapped. 'You know I can put a stop to this at any moment!'  
  
Harry felt himself turning again-  
  
He was feeling a different anger now. A low, simmering one. He was also feeling very cruel, and was hardly surprised when he felt a great desire to torture someone until they screamed in pain-  
  
The class gasped as Harry's eerie red eyes scrutinized them coldly. His terrible, skull-like face standing out ghostly white in the torchlight.  
  
Harry knew what had happened, but he lifted his hands up to see, anyway. There they were, the long, thin fingers of his visions, pale and spidery. He lifted his gaze again. Several of the Slytherins cowered. Now here at least, was one good thing about it all!  
  
He decided to give them all, his most malicious leer. They cowered still more, whimpering. Harry suspected that Voldemort would only smile when he was thinking about torturing something.  
  
He was changing again, becoming shorter. His head was getting closer to the floor, his body was stretching out. A voice had begun to sound in his head. A repeated whisper in an ancient language.  
  
Kill. must . kill.  
  
His eyes were just below desk level. He lifted his head up to stare across the dungeon, feeling decidedly - snake-ish.  
  
In a flash Snape had whirled round, flinging out his cloak. But it was too late. The rest of the potions class had already been petrified. Snape cursed loudly as they keeled over rigid on top of each other.  
  
But someone else had averted their eyes. Harry noticed that one other student was still standing, her back to him.  
  
'I didn't fancy being petrified for the third time professor,' she said dryly.  
  
Snape raised an eyebrow, and looked as if he was about to give her a wry smirk, but Hermione had looked round. He followed her gaze.  
  
Harry felt very odd. Not different, but odd. He was standing at his normal height again. He felt human, but also in some way. inhuman.  
  
He held up his hands again. His skin had a rather dusky tinge to it, as if he had been unwell. His fingers were thin and bony, the nails quite long.  
  
He felt agitated, restless. Something was bothering him. Like a memory he had forgotten and was trying in vain to remember.  
  
Hermione's eyes widened. Snape's narrowed.  
  
The creature's nostrils quivered. There was human in this room, he could sense it. Harry looked up, his eye falling first on the female. She was unnerved, wide-eyed, but not afraid.  
  
He slid his gaze across to the other. But this being. A deep hatred rushed up in him. This miserable, insufferable being, was a half blood traitor!  
  
Harry opened his mouth and was horrified to hear himself snarl like a wild animal.  
  
He knew instantly where he'd heard this noise before. It belonged to Snape's grim and shadowy memory. He went to lick his lips nervously.  
  
His tongue brushed against something very sharp.  
  
His hand flew up to feel his face in horror. His forehead felt different - his nose - his mouth had.  
  
Fangs.  
  
Fangs? Harry felt something deadly cold run down his neck. Snape: a vampire? But that was clearly impossible, he had refereed that Quidditch match in broad daylight. There were no clues, Hermione would have twigged.  
  
But what - if not vampire blood?  
  
'Feeling suitably educated yet, Potter?' said Snape softly, wearing a look of utter revulsion on his face. -He had to curb a raging urge to stake the creature.After all, what could be viler than a Vampire Potter?-  
  
'Harry, but how. ?' whispered Hermione faintly. She gazed wide eyed at Snape, whose black eyes gleamed madly, the pale fingers of one hand pressed against his neck.  
  
On the other side of the room Harry steadied himself against a desk. The feeling of restlessness was beginning to bother him. He was also beginning to feel a dull, pounding ache inside his head.  
  
'This is unbearable,' thought Harry, grimacing. He could understand rage and anger, even coldness and cruelty.  
  
But this feeling.?  
  
'Please.' he rasped painfully, forcing himself to turn his gaze away from the humans, hiding his head under his robes. 'Please.'  
  
This was like -hell.  
  
'Please. enough!' He rasped out, cowering. He needed it to be darker. The torch flames suddenly seemed far too bright.  
  
Then he heard Hermione's voice call out. 'Petrificus totalus!' Harry felt himself keel over, rigid.  
  
_____________________________________________  
  
Harry picked himself off the floor and dusted himself down. The class were bustling about him, clearing away and mopping up spills. The antidote must have returned them to normal, too. Snape's voice sounded above the classroom noise.  
  
'There will be nothing new in next week's lesson either. I suggest that you continue with the revision.' he sneered. 'And I would prefer it if you uphold the standard you reached today. I will not tolerate failure in my NEWT classes.'  
  
The Slytherins were all casting Harry filthy looks, and whispering. Snape had let them find out. Was this what he had to look forward to now? Where could it end? Would Ron shun him?  
  
Hermione looked at the Slytherins, and smiled to herself. Now they all knew it wasn't nice being petrified. If only she had had something slimy to flick at them.  
  
Harry felt stiff, sore, and utterly defeated. It was like he still had some of that ageing potion left in him.  
  
He also felt slightly weak and nauseous, as if he had been nearly suffocated. Like that day when Uncle Vernon had almost strangled him in a fit of rage.  
  
He stifled that thought quickly.  
  
As Hermione helped him pack away his things, she suddenly leaned across to him and whispered in his ear.  
  
'They don't know, Harry.'  
  
'What? Who?' Harry was confused. Did she expect everyone to understand her train of thought?  
  
'The Slytherins. All petrified.'  
  
Harry stared back dumbly. 'All?'  
  
'Yes. And Neville too. When you're petrified you can't remember it. They're just whingeing about what you did to them as the Basilisk.'  
  
Harry's heart gave a leap of hope. Maybe he could keep this a secret. Sharing a secret with Snape? He shivered, but was glad that Hermione knew too. Maybe she'd even figure the rest out. She smiled at him. They stood up, and slowly went to follow the others out of the door.  
  
'Potter. ' It was Snape's cold voice. As Harry turned the professor's lip curled. 'I suggest you remain behind to repair the considerable damage your Hungarian Horntail did to my classroom.'  
  
Harry stalled. -How predictable-. Never mind the Blast-Ended Skrewt that had torched a couple of desks, and sent cauldrons and newt brains flying across the dungeon. Hermione narrowed her eyes, while Neville gave him a supportive look. He stood back while the class filtered out.  
  
He heard a snigger behind him. 'Have a nice spring clean, Potty!'  
  
Malfoy walked past, smirking, closing the door behind him.  
  
He looked across at the professor, who was sat idly at his desk on the raised platform, watching him closely. The torch flames illuminated his sallow face eerily, their light reflecting in, but failing to warm his cold black eyes.  
  
'I suppose I couldn't exactly avoid spending more quality time with my tormenter,' Harry said wearily.  
  
Snape's eyes narrowed. 'So you care to lay the blame on me as the creator of your torment?' came the sly retort. 'As far as I can envisage, Potter, you brought this whole sorry mess on yourself!'  
  
Harry remained silent.  
  
The Potions Master leaned back, spreading his hands and putting them together so just the fingertips touched. 'Well. Potter.' he whispered. You asked me a question, and I, as one of your professors, thought it only fair I should inform you of the answer. And, as it is woefully obvious, that your preference is for active learning, and not books. '  
  
He trailed off for effect, raising one sardonic eyebrow. Harry set his jaw.  
  
Snape smiled nastily and leaned forward, the greasy curtains of hair falling, throwing his face into shadow. 'After all, what's a dark secret between Occlumens? Now.what's that Muggle phrase?' he frowned, pretending to think. 'A problem shared, is a problem halved. Don't you think so, -Harry?'  
  
His name again, sounding almost tainted the way Snape hissed it. Clearly this was turning into the latest form of amusement.  
  
Harry couldn't care to answer. After all, they were just insults, and he knew how to treat those now. Instead he concentrated on fixing his eyes on a stone in the wall behind the Professor's head  
  
Snape leant back in his chair again, this time tracing a thin finger over his mouth. The room was silent for perhaps as long as a minute.  
  
'These silences really do add some depth to your character,' he sneered eventually.  
  
'What happened to clearing up the dungeon?' thought Harry. Did Snape just call him back so he could throw 'perceptive' insults at him? Or - was Snape working himself up to revealing some other chilling secret, in his rather odd, roundabout way?  
  
But he had to steel himself. He wouldn't stoop to Snape's cruelty. 'Hate is a fear of understanding.' This was the last thing his mother had told him, before she had let him go.  
  
It also reminded him of something Luna had suddenly come up with one day. 'If everyone faced life with clenched fists, nobody would ever be able to shake hands.'  
  
Harry wasn't sure if he ever wanted to take this literally and actually shake Snape's hand, but he saw that six years of returning his hatred had absolutely done no good whatsoever. Hearing his mother's voice had given him a reason to drag himself up from the floor, and strength to repair his shattered identity. She believed he could change, and if he let the world defeat him now, then her death would have been in vain.  
  
'So, tell me,' the smooth and horribly smug voice began again. 'How do you feel about the educational value of today's potions lesson? Not that I care about your feelings, or the impact on your mental state, of course.'  
  
'If he is keeping me behind to ask for such a thing, then he does care,' thought Harry, still averting his eyes from the chilling gaze. Snape had not just wanted to name his 'curse'; he had contrived a plot to enable Harry to physically experience it. The reality of this was quite disturbing.  
  
'I think I would prefer to tell a counsellor that, sir,' muttered Harry quietly.  
  
Snape laughed dryly, and mirthlessly. The tired sound echoed around the dungeon, sending chills through Harry.  
  
'The cruel can suffer as much as the kind, Potter,' he hissed. He stood up and beckoned Harry over.  
  
When Harry felt he was close enough, (Which would have been anywhere in, or near Snape's dungeon, to tell the truth) he stopped. Snape loomed over his desk, and glared down at him.  
  
'Want to know what kind of suffering a fifteen year old went through after he heard his mother being -bitten- to death by his grandfather?'  
  
Harry's eyes darted from the wall, and locked into the professors. His thoughts sped directly to the haunting memory.  
  
Not a crucio scream - a vampire attack.  
  
Snape wasn't finished, though. His eyes had begun to glint oddly. His voice came as a deadly hiss.  
  
'When you had your little tantrum in my office the other day, you used the word, hate more than once. Hear me, Potter, you can't even begin to conceive how it feels to hate someone! You are too sickeningly noble, too upright, too -pure!' he spat out the last word, as if it had been a bitter nut.  
  
Harry's shock deepened. For this memory had just linked itself to one several years old now. One he had tried hard to forget, one in where he had heard a woman screaming, and screaming. On, and on. growing weaker and weaker.  
  
Now he knew why Snape's memory had haunted him so often. The dungeon seemed to plummet all around him.  
  
'Well?' Snape snapped, breathing evenly. He surveyed the boy through narrowed eyes, impatient for a response.  
  
'My mum screamed, too,' the boy mumbled quietly.  
  
Snape started. He was hardly one for empathy, though, even in the best of moods. 'Don't try that game, Potter!' he hissed threateningly.  
  
But Harry was already blinking back tears. 'The Dementors in third year showed me,' he muttered. 'My father was telling her to run.Then Vol- He, was laughing. 'Stand aside you silly girl.' he was shouting. My mum begged him for mercy. Not Harry.! Please.take me.! kill me instead.Horrible.oh, horrible. screaming.'  
  
Harry was exhausted, physically and mentally. His steady hold on recalling the memory broke and he began to sob wretchedly.  
  
The professor scowled uneasily as the boy put a shaking hand up to cover his face. This wasn't expected, he had wanted to see the boy turn green with shock again.  
  
But the Dementors had to ruin his triumphs, like everyone else.  
  
'Why in Merlin's name,' thought Snape darkly, 'should the son of James Potter decide to have all his breakdowns in front of me?'  
  
'You're being pathetic again, Potter,' he rasped. 'This childishness will get you nowhere with me!'  
  
In response, Harry simply turned aside and began to sob more loudly. He would cry all he wanted. He was in no mood to please Snape by shutting up. Suffering was good; he got a strange comfort from it now.  
  
Feeling pain meant he was still human. Unlike Snape.  
  
He was terrified of becoming like Snape.  
  
Terrified.  
  
Snape straightened up awkwardly, and stepped out from behind his desk.  
  
'Stop this pointless nonsense, boy!' he hissed.  
  
Out of the watery corner of his eye Harry saw a man walking toward him. As he closed in, Harry cringed. Then, unexpectedly, he felt a blind rush of panic overwhelm him. Where was he? Who was that?  
  
'NOOO!' He shrieked out suddenly, cowering. 'NO MORE! PLEASE! NOT AGAIN! I CAN'T - NO MORE!'  
  
The door creaked open. Snape stopped abruptly in his tracks.  
  
Professor Brown had just walked in, a pile of books cradled in her arms. 


	11. Alone With the Crowd

Ameda Brown stopped short of stepping into her colleague's classroom. Her eyes widened at the scene before her.  
  
'Oh, I hope I haven't interrupted anything,' she frowned. Her hazel eyes fixed anxiously on the quivering sixth year Gryffindor, who was now trying to curl into a ball under a desk.  
  
Harry realised the woman's voice wasn't his aunt's, but one of his professors. So he was at Hogwarts still. His eyes darted up.  
  
'Harry Potter,' she murmured, recognising her star pupil. Her gaze turned to Snape. 'Professor?'  
  
He scowled awkwardly and looked down at his feet.  
  
'Due to his colourful past, Professor Brown, Mister Potter has a tendency to suddenly become hysterical at times, for no discernable reason.'  
  
'Well,' she muttered, her voice carrying a hint of suspicion. 'I must remark that to date, I cannot recall Mister Potter ever showing any signs of hysteria in my classes.'  
  
'Some of us are less fortunate,' muttered Snape darkly.  
  
Feeling safer under the table, Harry's trembling slowly died away. Wiping his wet cheeks with a sleeve, he became aware of exactly where he was, and began to make sense of the professors' conversation. Brown looked rather disappointed in Snape, who had suddenly taken an unusual interest in fiddling with the buttons on his cuff.  
  
'I honestly don't want to question your methods, Professor Snape,' she was saying gently. 'Especially since I have been assured of your competence by other colleagues. I am simply rather disappointed that you consider intimidation to be an appropriate method of dealing with distressed students.'  
  
Snape's eye began to twitch. 'The method I use depends on the student.'  
  
'You are not convincing me,' she remarked firmly. She looked down at Harry, who was still wiping reddened eyes. 'Are you okay, Harry?'  
  
'Yes thank you, professor,' he murmured.  
  
Brown tutted, reached into her pocket and pulled out a tissue. She offered it to Harry. 'Here, take this.'  
  
Harry smiled weakly. 'Thanks.'  
  
Snape stiffened.  
  
'Now, Professor Snape,' she said briskly. 'Where do you want me to put these books?'  
  
'I - eh - on my desk,' he muttered. Brown crossed the room and placed the volumes on the desk with a thud. She turned swiftly, and crossed to the door.  
  
'Good day, Mr. Potter. Severus-' she nodded, her gaze lingering, before she pulled the door shut after her.  
  
Harry eased himself out from under the table. He shot a wary glance at Snape and moved to collect his bag, giving the Potions Master an extra wide berth.  
  
Snape eyed him darkly. 'And what about the mess you are supposed to be clearing up?'  
  
'Well, sir,' he muttered calmly, 'I'm sorry about that. But as Malfoy said, that potion must cause the drinker to lose control. If he really wasn't aiming to disembowel me, then I didn't mean to smash up your room. So if you'll just excuse me-'  
  
With this Harry mustered the strength to set his jaw, cross to the door, and walk out.  
  
Snape stood motionless watching the boy walk up the corridor. He had not expected Harry to walk out.  
  
He had not wanted him to walk out!  
  
He came to his senses and swept into the corridor menacingly.  
  
'POTTER!'  
  
Too late, the boy had already gone.  
  
Snape hissed to himself as he paced the corridor. He realised he was torn between being annoyed at Harry's last comment, and being impressed.  
  
'That was a sneaky Slytherin lie dressed up with Gryffindor audacity,' he told himself. All the more annoying for it! Why couldn't Potter be completely Gryffindor like his parents?  
  
A predictable, basic, James Potter Gryffindor. Was that too much to ask for?  
  
James had never been half as complex, the arrogant, spoilt bastard. His son, crying? Ha! Gryffindors don't snivel. Of course crying would seem like an inexcusable weakness.  
  
For someone who never felt miserable enough to.  
  
Hogwarts had bent rules over backwards to make their beloved hero happy. But just how brave had been his son's attempted suicide? Would the social magnet of a James Potter sit and sulk by Hogwarts lake?  
  
Snape had spent the best part of a year brushing aside these images. Oh yes, he'd seen him do this not only in memories, but in real life too. The boy often came out there before sunrise, staring out into the white mists over the water.  
  
Even when cloak-less on frosty winter mornings he noticed the boy barely shivered. In class too, he was the same. Unmoved by insults. Like he could disconnect his feelings at will.  
  
Snape narrowed his eyes and let the boy's most recent words to him run through his head again. Bitterness without the emotion. Sarcasm without the bite. The Gryffindor lion without the roar.  
  
On one extreme the boy had gained control of himself to an extent Snape couldn't even fathom. Deaf to all jibes, cool to the point of inhumanity. Yet this same boy could suddenly drink poison, or go hysterical.  
  
No need to point out it was disturbing.  
  
Well, he had certainly been confident enough once to predict that Harry Potter's sorting into Gryffindor would set his character. Confident enough, because that very first lesson, had been the first time he had cared to say the name for years. The unwelcome feelings had been mounting up even before the roll call had reached the 'P's,  
  
'Potter.'  
  
It was the full name printed on the list that did it. That middle name which had glared so insolently out the page at him. And then the boy had answered in his father's same loud, bold tone. And it had been just as if James had come back from the dead. As if the boy actually was his father.  
  
Wrong, Severus, wrong. For you too look like your father.  
  
Are you your father?  
  
Snape swallowed so hard he hurt his throat. A tense knot had begun to form in his stomach earlier, but he had ignored it. Now he was alone, the tightness began to spread to his chest.  
  
What was this?  
  
Bewildered, Snape tried to stifle it. When the attempts failed, he grew alarmed.  
  
It was restricting his breathing.  
  
Taking out his wand he managed to choke out the words to shut, and cast an imperturbable charm on the door.  
  
This calmed him slightly. He sneered and crossed slowly back over to his desk.  
  
He had essays to mark. He pulled the first one out of the pile and placed it in front of him. He stared dumbly at the cream parchment. His eyes tried to read the words, but they kept on focusing on a place somewhere behind them.  
  
Empty your mind of emotion-  
  
Dumbledore's voice. Snape breathed in deeply, reached for his marking quill, and forced his eyes to focus on the words.  
  
Control-  
  
His fingers clenched before they even touched the quill.  
  
'Oh - no.'  
  
The words had fallen out in a loud, rasping sob.  
  
He jumped. The noise had echoed, and frightened him. He scowled, feeling foolish, and potion jars rattled as he slammed an angry fist down on the desk.  
  
The scowl quickly twisted itself into a mask of pure anguish. The pain in his body and throat had become taut and almost unbearable. Years of pain. Ignored, dulled. Silenced.  
  
He had drowned them with potions. But now they had come to the surface to drag him down. Threatening to drown him.  
  
'Damn!' he croaked out vehemently.  
  
This would NOT do!  
  
But he couldn't prevent his fingers from gripping into the desk like claws. His body quivering with charged feelings. He swallowed again, choking back more sobs.  
  
And he well knew what others would say about this.  
  
One in a voice, which still made his skin prickle all over with dread. A soft, mocking tone which he would never forget.  
  
'Still unable to rid yourself of your humanity, I see? Odd for such a capable, intelligent boy to still be so indecisive and weak. But, of course, the runt of the litter is expectedly the weakest.'  
  
Snape remembered the eyes, which had looked so coldly at him. Remembered the eerie laugh, which had rung out after addressing the gathering with the question.  
  
'Should I be gentle with my youngest DeathEater, even though he is weak?'  
  
And the other was an aristocratic, well-bred accent, always with an insult at the ready. Connected to much older memories. A long dead voice, the smell of damp plaster and rotting wood.  
  
'Watch and learn, wretched child.'  
  
'Watch me!'  
  
No, no, no, no.  
  
I can't-  
  
NO!  
  
Snape froze. The realisation that he had just been whimpering the last words aloud made his jaw clench shut in a fierce anger.  
  
Merlin's arse to casting spells! Now he felt like smashing something!  
  
His dark eyes flashed once around the dungeon, before finally looking down. Grinning insanely he gripped hold of his desk, and with a yell of defiance, violently flung it with all his might.  
  
The echoing bang as the heavy table hit the floor was deafening. But, of course, nobody else could hear. Snape watched triumphantly as the desk slid along the stones, sending parchment, ink, books, and jars of potion ingredients skidding and smashing everywhere.  
  
As the mess settled, and the last jar had stopped rocking, Snape finally picked up the sound of his own heart hammering. He leered stupidly, breathing more freely again.  
  
'Now that had been more satisfying than waving a bloody little twig about and cursing,' he thought. Yes, it was a decidedly Muggle attitude, but physical might left a sense of achievement magic never did. One advantage of working in a classroom full of satisfyingly breakable objects.  
  
Potions could be therapeutic in more ways than one.  
  
He took out his wand and levitated his desk back into its original position.  
  
In a gloomy corner of Snape's dungeon, a teenage boy looked on silently, as his professor began to clear up the classroom. Shivering, he wrapped his father's invisibility cloak more tightly around himself.  
  
He had just watched Snape cry. 


	12. Uncertain Silence

Chapter 8: Uncertain Silences  
  
Barely ten hours later a certain teenage boy tried in vain to sleep, and was failing. Every ten to fifteen minutes he would sigh, and turn restlessly in his bed. It was no good, every time he turned over he felt the bedsheets tighten around him like Devils Snare.  
  
Breakfast was in barely four and a half hours time. Double DADA in just over five and a half hours.  
  
Maybe there was a good reason not to creep around under invisibility cloaks. It had been exciting in the first year. This year-  
  
Harry chewed his lip. Yes, he had got away without being detected - luckily a Slytherin had knocked and he had been able to escape. But, as for what he'd seen and heard.  
  
'Well, that taught you, didn't it Potter?' he muttered bitterly to himself.  
  
What should he think now? How could he face the man after sneaking about like that?  
  
With his eyes still closed, Harry disentangled an arm from the twisted bed sheets and reached across to his bedside table. His fingers identified something cool and smooth, and curled around the ridged wooden frame of the small pocket mirror Sirius had given him.  
  
The two way mirror. He had broken it in frustration last year, but Lupin had mended it, just before he returned to Hogwarts for the sixth year. The other mirror was in his possession now, but up until this evening Harry had buried the thing right at the bottom of his trunk, determined he would never contact Lupin. After all, his so-called 'guardian' had seen so little of him this year Harry eventually assumed he didn't care.  
  
But no. Harry berated himself for thinking that way. Lupin looked more unwell every time he saw him. He had seen him five Occlumency sessions, and as the weeks went on the man seemed to look worse and worse. Of course the man cared! It was simply because he was busy. Or not well. Or both.  
  
Harry sighed, feeling his chest relax slightly. He would contact Lupin tomorrow. Talk over his problems.  
  
Harry's fingers took a firmer hold on the mirror, before a second thought made him loosen his grip.  
  
The Lupin and Snape's conversation in that Occlumency session.  
  
It was so obvious now - what they had been talking about. Lupin's patience with Snape, Snape's attitude toward Lupin.  
  
The whole uncanny Forbidden Forest feeling he'd had.  
  
Harry felt a slight chill run through him. He withdrew his hand from the mirror and turned his back on it. A movement which only served to twist the sheets even tighter.  
  
After a few minutes Harry sighed in frustration, disentangled himself once again, fluffed up the pillows and had another attempt at sleeping.  
  
But he still couldn't remove one thought from the front of his mind - how long had Lupin known about Snape? How much did he know about everything else?  
  
**************************************  
  
Meanwhile, several hundred miles away in a Victorian suburb the boy's guardian sighed to himself, before shuffling in his chair. The book he was reading was tedious, but it was the only one to hand. His thoughts wandered to Harry. Dumbledore had been watching him more carefully since that fiasco of an Occlumency lesson. Everybody always expected Harry to cope because of who he was.  
  
But The Boy Who Lived was still only human. He had battled on for so long with his problems, and like everyone else, he had a breaking point.  
  
Lupin closed his eyes. If only he had understood what it was like to suffer like Harry had, he may have been able to prevent him from going so low.  
  
He had been foolish to assume that because he missed Sirius badly as a friend, the lad did too. He had assumed this, but he forgot that Harry had barely enough time to get to know Sirius, let alone know him as a dear friend! Harry's grief and sense of loss, as Dumbledore said, went deeper than that. Losing Sirius had caused the foundations to slip.  
  
Lupin's thoughts turned to his own childhood. His parents had been strong, supportive and brave not to reject him when he had been bitten. They had never stopped looking for a cure, and they had always been there for him. He had suffered years of prejudice and rejection, but at least he had been loved. From what he'd heard, Harry had been dragged up by the Dursleys.  
  
Try as he might, Lupin couldn't grasp the implications of this. It had made him a strong fighter, but in what ways had it affected him? Lupin was strong, tough, used to struggling along by himself, but he had always had vital support from home. Harry had never had this.  
  
Sirius had briefly given him what he must have always craved, a link with his father, a real family. This was the reason for Harry's rage when Sirius was cruelly taken from him. He had been shocked when Dumbledore told him that Harry had attempted to perform the Cruciatus Curse on Bellatrix. Lupin himself had never dreamed of using it on anybody. Not even Bellatrix.  
  
As the weeks following Sirius' death had crawled slowly on, Lupin had seeked out what human company he could in his grief, not bearing to be alone. Harry, in stark contrast, had grown increasingly cold, and solitary.  
  
Lupin had asked Harry once whether he ever spoke to his friends about life with the Dursleys. The lad had replied quietly that he hadn't, and his expression told him he loathed to be reminded of it. Lupin had then lost the courage to question him any further.  
  
If Harry couldn't bear to talk about it with his friends, then he wouldn't have told any adults. After all, Lupin frowned, would he himself want to confide in adults if he had spent ten years being despised by them?  
  
Dumbledore's words still bothered him. How could Severus Snape possibly help Harry? Surely his hatred of Harry would compete with the Dursleys? Lupin frowned.  
  
Desmodus.  
  
Subconsciously Lupin's hand moved to his face, where the deep scratches caused by the vampire's sharp nails had torn into him. Werewolves healed fast, though, and the marks were long gone. Desmodus was nothing short of a monster. Lupin was dangerous only for a few nights a month; vampires posed a threat every night.  
  
Desmodus's portrait was Lupin's only window into Snape's home life. They had discovered it right at the back of a disused classroom while exploring one day. It had been amusing to hear the portrait spit venom about his grandson, about how lazy, and useless he was, and how his father disowned him. The Marauders had used this as extra ammunition against Snape, of course. The next time they had visited the room, though, the portrait had disappeared.  
  
As for appearing and disappearing; Lupin was still baffled as to how the portrait had turned up in Snape's quarters on the first of April. It was true, he really had nothing to do with it. But the most bizarre thing was, Desmodus had thanked him! Did he have a twin double walking around?  
  
There was always Polyjuice he reasoned, but who else was able to touch the painting, and who would have the audacity to walk into Snape's private quarters? Lupin believed he'd hardly be surprised if he found out that Dumbledore had something to do with it.  
  
But it had been Severus' reaction toward the painting that had surprised him more than how it had got there. Clearly Snape had shown a deep hatred for his grandfather. But there was also that sudden stab of pure terror, which had paralysed him. Snape knew how to deal with vampires, so what had Desmodus said that would cause Snape to panic? Putting Professor Snape and panic in the same sentence seemed wrong.  
  
And who was Incisia?  
  
Snape had always been an enigma. When Lupin had taken the Defence Against The Dark Arts position, and met Severus for the first time since their schooldays, he had been initially awed by how the quiet but weird, overly- nervous boy had transformed himself into an impressively deadly, cool and calculating Professor.  
  
But then the episode in the Shrieking Shack had turned back time, and revealed the truth, so Lupin reckoned.  
  
Hadn't it been his opinion since then, that Snape hadn't really changed at all? That he was still the same tormented schoolboy in disguise?  
  
Snape clung onto the past with an intensity that was frightening. He failed to distinguish Harry from James, and had loathed him from the start. Yet the irony of the whole situation, was that while Harry looked like James, he acted more like Lily.  
  
Surprisingly, though, hadn't it been Snape himself who had suggested in a meeting last year, that several members of the Order ought to have a 'quiet word' with the Dursleys at the end of term?  
  
He frowned. Was it fair to state that the more you learnt about Severus Snape, the less you understood him?  
  
Lupin glanced up to look around at the gloomy dining room. Despite all the dark trinkets being removed, Twelve Grimmauld Place was still dingy, eerie and oppressive. The carpets had been ripped up, and the floorboards cleaned and varnished, but the windows were small and failed to let in much light, and the dark furniture was hard and uncomfortable. Despite this, Lupin felt an odd comfort in sitting in this room. He and Sirius used to sit at this very table last year, talking about the past, playing cards, sharing a drink.  
  
He put down his book, stood, and downed the last dregs left in the glass.  
  
'Would you care for some more wine, Severus?'  
  
A silly question, he noted, as he looked to realise the man hadn't even touched his first glass.  
  
'No thank you, Remus,' muttered Snape, still staring stonily at the wall.  
  
Lupin shuffled awkwardly. He wasn't used to houseguests who invited themselves in at 3am, just to sit in a chair in stony silence. The time of night didn't concern Lupin, though, he was a very bad sleeper, especially near the full moon. He presumed Snape, with his nature preferred prowling about all times of the night too.  
  
Lupin got up and crossed the room. When he reached the door, though, he paused. A curious need for knowledge about his guest, had been burning in him for weeks. Here was his chance. He wasn't sure how to word it. But however, and whatever question he asked Severus Snape it would probably receive the same sarcastically bitter response.  
  
No matter then. He toyed with the empty glass in his hands.  
  
'Didn't you hear me Lupin? I said no thank you. Not even you would ever be able to persuade me to drink.that.' Snape muttered, casting a glance at his untouched glassful of red wine, his lip curling in revulsion.  
  
'I wasn't going to ask that question again, Severus. I was wondering whether to ask you something else.'  
  
Snape narrowed his eyes. 'About what?'  
  
Lupin sighed. 'About the past.'  
  
His lip curled. 'Meaning everything before the present? That could take a while Lupin.'  
  
There was the obtuseness. A simple question was never simple with this man. But Lupin was patient. 'About the first day we met.'  
  
Snape paled slightly. His eyes flashed. 'I have had a bad enough day, Lupin without schoolboy reminiscing.'  
  
'Severus. You know I didn't laugh. I didn't make fun-'  
  
'No - you didn't do anything! I wanted to be alone. I presumed that locking the door behind me would be a big enough hint,' he snarled. 'But, dear old Black, may he rot in peace, insisted upon making enemies.'  
  
Lupin winced, and closed his eyes. 'I know. I know I did nothing. I can't speak for my past self. I can speak for my present self though. And now, well, I would like to know why you were upset.'  
  
Snape's eyes narrowed, and a sneer played at the side of his mouth. 'Somewhat late to ask for forgiveness, Lupin, isn't it? I always thought you admonished me that being unable to forget the past was not the way to go through life. And here you are now, dragging up something we could have conveniently forgotten.'  
  
Lupin stared sadly. 'I don't ask for anything. I don't want forgiveness. I am serious in my questioning, though.'  
  
A nasty laugh cut through the room. 'Do you think I would spill my thoughts to a Marauder? Are you training to be a counsellor perchance, werewolf? Let people tell you their woes before you rip their legs off?'  
  
Lupin sighed. 'You wouldn't even tell a Marauder something that may cause them suffering?'  
  
'Believe me or not, Lupin, I have seen enough suffering today.'  
  
'Then I promise not to suffer in front of you.'  
  
Snape turned to look at Lupin for the first time in the conversation. The werewolf was being extraordinarily stubborn. He examined the lines on the man's gaunt face. He had aged ten years since last summer. All the stress looked like it was damn well killing him. He raised an eyebrow.  
  
So the man wanted something urgently? All the more reason for not letting him have it. Well, not entirely.  
  
'Fine.'  
  
Lupin smiled slightly.  
  
Snape's eyes glinted. 'I was crying because my pet hamster died.'  
  
Lupin frowned at Snape, whose expression was unreadable, was this to be taken as a joke? He decided against it.  
  
'I don't believe you have told me all, Severus.'  
  
They stared at each other in determined silence. Finally, Snape smirked slightly and looked away.  
  
'Oh, I am terribly sorry if my confession offended your poor Gryffindor ears, Lupin,' came the sarcastic tone. 'But, with your past would you likely believe anything else I might say? After all, isn't Slytherin the house of infamy, branded for its penchant for deception?'  
  
Lupin watched as Snape's bitter expression reverted once more into a look that was both stony and distant. Even his voice seemed distant, dropping to a level which made the whisper of the carriage clock on the mantelpiece seem intrusive. 'Therefore, I repeat, my pet hamster died. Which it certainly did. That morning, before I left for Hogwarts.'  
  
Lupin sighed. What could he say to that? That he was sorry to hear it? The Slytherin would most probably laugh in his face!  
  
No - he would get the wine first, and then decide. 'I am just going to the cellar,' he said quietly. As he expected, Snape's only response was a glare.  
  
As he crossed to the dining room door Lupin was hardly surprised when he found himself struggling to picture Severus Snape keeping a hamster in any other way than pickled in a jar for potion ingredients.  
  
The whole concept sounded ridiculous. But then, it could only remind him of how little he knew about him.  
  
How much he still needed to find out. And, owing to the nature of the man, how much of an unpredictable ride it could be in doing so. 


	13. More Time to Think

A/N: Thank you all so much for your patience and quality reviews! I'll have a quick go at answering a few questions, or I'll feel guilty.  
  
Merryfurry - Hamsters are such innocent things aren't they? Not - I was certain mine was evil! I was just making a point about how little we as readers know about Snape. (Maybe JKR's Snape keeps hamsters for a hobby. Heh, who knows but JKR?)  
  
Ronandchicken - Snape's desk didn't hit Harry because he was near the door, and Snape threw the desk across the classroom. Well, in the classroom plan in my head anyway! I hope you like the next chapter.  
  
Sherdelune - Heh, who knows what Snape did but Snape? The man's giving me enough grief trying to write him. But I can say all might not be as straightforward (?) as it seems. And don't worry about Harry, I have that section of the plot sorted out. More intrigue? Oh yes.  
  
BekaJWP - Let's hope for the sake of the hamster it did die of natural causes. And yes - Snape's annoying like that, isn't he?  
  
And finally, here is my next offering. Please continue to review or comment! (  
  
******  
  
When Lupin returned to the dining room shortly afterwards, he couldn't help but feel surprised that his surly guest was still there. So much so, that failing to get even a simple nod of acknowledgement from the dark wizard didn't bother him in the slightest. Lupin went on to pour himself another glass of wine, before sitting down and reopening his book without speaking a word.  
  
Snape meanwhile, had reverted to staring stonily at the wall.  
  
'Well, Snape paying a visit - that must be an improvement of sorts,' thought Lupin. As ever, he caught himself trying to think positive. He had to - it was how he managed life. Without the smile, his whole world would have easily crashed down long ago, wrapping him in a cloak of depression and drear evenings, whispering words of hate in his ear.  
  
And then his days and nights would meld into one, and trap him into listening to the clock tick relentlessly in the same old tone. Day in, day out. Dawn to dusk to dawn to dusk.  
  
Moon to moon.  
  
No, it would not reach that. He had people to care for, people who cared. And people who relied on seeing Moony smile. Because if Moony smiled the world couldn't be lost.  
  
He took a small sip of his wine, and tilted his head slightly back to stare at the mould-speckled ceiling, his eyelids falling lower, as tiredness weighed on him.  
  
Moony, the mild-mannered, calm and pleasant soul. If he hadn't had this duty, this "Moony" personality to hold up for people, there would likely be two depressed, miserable-git wizards sat at the Black family dining table.  
  
And not to forget of course, the creature too. His other side.  
  
Which frightened people. And terrified him.  
  
Moony the animal.  
  
Lupin closed his eyes. He missed teaching so much - the constant everyday chatter of the school kids had helped to keep his mind off of darker things. It had given him a purpose.  
  
But now, weary, and sat in awkward, miserable silence with Hogwarts' hated Potions' Master, it was difficult to act like the pleasant old Moony everyone was used to.  
  
Twenty lonely years down the line for both of them. Had wearing a Gryffindor badge and a trademark smile really been the only difference between Snape's outcome and his?  
  
******  
  
Snape followed the pattern of the wallpaper with unusually dull eyes, as if not seeming to really notice it was there. He blinked, and scowled once again as his eyes slid back into focus. He hated the way he kept on finding himself slipping into deep thought, and so each time he realised, he would snap himself back into reality by digging his nails into his palms.  
  
And then there was that other thing bothering him. A sense that something had changed about the house since last year. And it wasn't the result of the Spring-cleaning or any of the damn Order's attempts at home- improvement.  
  
Snape narrowed his eyes, and flared out his nostrils slightly. It was a smell. A certain smell, which had been always in evidence all last year, but not this. Some 'thing' was amiss, definitely. Or missing.  
  
'Lupin, where is that rabid House Elf of the Blacks?  
  
'Ah,' muttered Lupin quietly, before pulling in his bottom lip, and running a hand awkwardly through his greying hair. 'He moved out. Last summer. Nobody has seen him since.'  
  
Snape snorted. 'As gullible as certain Gryffindors might be to believe that, it won't wash with me. I can also tell when one is lying.' Snape paused to smirk at his private joke. 'Yet it is not only the lack of subtlety. I could also tell by your heart rate that you were highly uncomfortable with the question.'  
  
'Ah - about as uncomfortable - perhaps - as you were a moment ago, Severus?' Lupin asked mysteriously, raising one eyebrow, and trying hard to stop his small smile from growing any wider. 'When I awaited your answer, I was positive my senses could smell fear. And it wasn't my own,' he added.  
  
'So - I will tell you where the elf has gone, only, if-'  
  
'Okay Lupin! Okay!' snapped Severus irritably. He glared darkly at the wall for a short while before beginning to mutter. 'I was upset on the train, because I had to leave my mother alone in the house, with - ' he paused, scowling.  
  
'Yes?' whispered Lupin.  
  
'I feared for her! And it was the first time I had ever been away from home!' was the quick reply. The Potions Master snapped his head round to glower at his questioner. 'Now, where's the damned Elf? What has Dumbledore done with him?'  
  
'Kreacher?' Lupin took in a shaky breath. 'Kreacher. Kreacher-'  
  
'Yes. We know the Elf's name! Very good. Now what-'  
  
'Kreacher's dead.'  
  
There was a brief silence.  
  
'Dead? How the hell can he be dead?!' spat Snape suddenly, going red. 'House Elves just don't die without someone bloody noticing! '  
  
Lupin bit his lip and swallowed. 'In this house, the morning after Sirius' death. 'I think - I am fairly certain.' He drew a long breath. 'I think he was eaten by the werewolf.'  
  
Snape raised his eyebrows sourly. 'Indeed? I presume by 'the werewolf,' you mean yourself? Why, didn't you trouble to take the Wolfsbane I've been tirelessly slaving over for three years?'  
  
'Of course I did Severus,' was the calm reply.  
  
'Then - are you insinuating that I made a mistake in my brewing?!'  
  
Lupin shook his head sadly, watching Snape's pale fingers curl claw-like into the chair arms. 'No.' he whispered.  
  
'No. Not at all.'  
  
'Then how, by Merlin, did a drugged werewolf end up devouring a bloody house elf?!'  
  
Lupin felt himself pale. He took a gulp of his wine and shuddered rather violently before daring to meet Snape's eyes. 'It can't be your potion. No error of yours. I had no need to take it that night, because it was a-'  
  
'New moon?' finished Snape, also paling slightly.  
  
Lupin trembled and looked away. His voice came softly, full of dread. 'Yes. I - I have no memory of the incident. All I remember is getting back exhausted the morning after the Ministry. The house was so empty and I suppose I was in some sort of shock. And then, I must have transformed soon after, because the next thing I remember is waking up in the hallway slumped on the floor, with Mrs Black screaming at me. After dealing with her I discovered my clothes were badly ripped. Dreading the worst, I inspected the house. I began upstairs. But finally I had to go down into the kitchens -'  
  
He trailed off.  
  
'You saw a body?' muttered Snape.  
  
'And blood - On the floor. Over the worktops. Everywhere,' whispered Lupin miserably. He downed the rest of his glass and closed his eyes.  
  
'It was - horrific. Absolutely horrific. The way it spreads. Settles. Dries to that black -'  
  
Blood.  
  
Everywhere.  
  
Snape shuddered involuntary, and was so glad Lupin had shut his eyes. If he had begun to lose his strong grip on such emotions he rather no one knew.  
  
'You are terrified of me, Severus. I can smell it,' said Lupin calmly.  
  
Snape snarled. Damn! He had forgotten he couldn't conceal such things from a werewolf. Was this why the creature always used to watch and never do? 'Are you surprised, Lupin? As far as I can see, you could start drooling at any moment!'  
  
'No - I don't think I will now,' was the thought out reply. 'You see Severus, I think not getting angry is the key to controlling this.'  
  
'So you believe I will trust you simply because you THINK you have a solution?' he snorted incredulously.  
  
'No.' was the simple reply. 'I have transformed three more times in this house. Luckily I was on my own each time, and managed to prepare before I transformed.'  
  
'And were you angry beforehand?'  
  
'Yes. Once with myself, once with Harry. And - once, I'm afraid, with you.'  
  
Snape's expression soured. 'Well, that is simply MARVELLOUS!'  
  
Lupin paled as Snape suddenly stood up, tipping the chair over in his haste. 'But where are you-'  
  
'Isn't it obvious, wolf? Out of this blasted house before you feel like growing fur!'  
  
'No, please!' Lupin hurried to block Snape. 'Please listen to me!'  
  
'Get out of my way, Lupin, or I will make you!'  
  
Lupin held out his arms, which only served to make the other wizard glower more. 'Please - I have been practising meditation. I feel no anger toward you-'  
  
Snapes eyes narrowed to dangerous slits. 'If you think that our truce involves me spending more quality time with you, you can think again! And now I have heard this pathetic confession I think the Order should-'  
  
'The Order will have nothing to do with this, Severus, and I suggest you keep it that way,' warned Lupin, also narrowing his eyes.  
  
'Are you threatening me, wolf?' hissed Snape.  
  
'This matter is between you and me - only.'  
  
'How intimate.'  
  
'Please, Severus. A few more minutes of your time?'  
  
Snape was agitated. He wanted to leave. To be alone. But something had collapsed inside him that day. He had allowed Harry Potter to get to him. And suddenly he was quite afraid of being alone.  
  
The snake and the lion had each other squeezed in a death grip.  
  
'Our Hogwarts is in danger, from external deadly foes. And we must unite inside her, or we will crumble from within.'  
  
Lupin watched Snape's eyes darken, and his face harden into its usual stony mask of superior indifference. It was a wasted effort, though - as even the most skilled Occlumens were rendered quite powerless against a wolf's powerful sense of smell. Something was very wrong with him tonight. He hadn't smelt fear about him since they were teenagers. Snape the adult had built a fortress of disdain around himself to keep it in.  
  
But something had happened, a wall had fallen. Very recently. And now Snape was afraid again. Afraid to be alone, maybe - just like he was? Severus Snape never made social calls; especially not to Remus 'Werewolf' Lupin.  
  
'Why did you come to London?' was the barely audible whisper.  
  
'Exactly the question I have been repeating to myself since I got here,' came the bitter drawl. 'Damn Muggle traffic. Viciously insane wolves-'  
  
Lupin closed his eyes. 'I suppose the action alone must speak for itself, then. Even if I have to chain myself to something to reassure you, will you please stay for a while longer?'  
  
'Why?'  
  
The response was a resolute one, made deceptively simple by the sandy haired wizard's ever-pleasant smile. 'We are going to talk.'  
  
'WHAT?!'  
  
'Rather, you are going to talk, and I am going to listen.'  
  
Snape moistened his lips as they hovered between a sneer and twisting into an aghast expression. 'And why in hell, would you want me to do that?!'  
  
'Because I can tell you want to talk. And if you want to talk, I want to listen.'  
  
The professor flushed an ugly colour. 'Do not make assumptions about what I want, Werewolf!'  
  
'Well, someone has to, because you certainly don't.'  
  
'What are you playing at, Lupin?' Snape hissed, sliding a hand toward the pocket where he kept his wand.  
  
'I'm not playing at anything. I am being serious, and I think I can help.'  
  
'I don't need help from anyone, especially not from a Marauder!' snarled Snap, marching forward.  
  
Lupin blocked him. Enraged, Snape went to shove him out of the way, but Lupin was much stronger than he looked, and stood firm, damming the doorway.  
  
Snape took a step backwards and drew his wand. 'Don't make me hex you!'  
  
'By all means hex me, Severus - I deserve it.'  
  
What colour Snape had had all but disappeared. A wand tip was quivering with its owner's rage.  
  
'Don't you dare make fun of me Marauder! he seethed. 'Don't you dare do this!'  
  
'I am not doing anything to you, Severus,' replied Lupin quietly. 'Just like I never did anything - except for watch. And the Marauders died sixteen years ago. They died, and you-'  
  
'THEY NEVER DIED FOR ME, YOU SPINELESS BASTARD!' Snape shrieked out suddenly, white sparks crackling up and over his wand hand like lightening. 'FILTHY CUR! SON OF A BITCH! How DARE you stand there, in front of ME and say that!? You know what I mean, so don't say otherwise. Vile, lowlife scum! Mongrel.bloody HALF-breed-' His jaw stiffened and snapped shut as he uttered the last words. Snape's tirade of oaths had died off as quickly as they had begun.  
  
They stared at one another in an ominous silence. A silence, Lupin feared; that would prove to be merely the eye of the storm.  
  
Then, an old and chillingly familiar gleam appeared in Snape's eyes. His words were quiet, but charged with vicious intent. 'So move.Lupin. damn you, or I swear I'll use Vulnero viscus.'  
  
Lupin tensed as he recognised the gleam as desperation.  
  
The desperation that came from years of driving an awkward little Slytherin into defending himself. A Slytherin, who for years kept to himself, never really caring about casting a single hex on the Marauders - till most of his gang left.  
  
The Slytherin who initially preferred peace and quiet, to hexing others in corridors, but who had been forced to find protection in a gang, just like Lupin. And when his older peers left Hogwarts, he had been driven to insanity by the rest of the school.  
  
The other houses wanted their revenge on his Deatheater housemates. And they got it. For every person his old gang went on to kill, Severus Snape had felt the consequences.  
  
The day they had turned Snape upside down at the lake, was the day after Evan Rosier had tortured his first Muggle family to death.  
  
Lupin swallowed. He realised he was getting dangerously close to pitying Severus Snape. But hadn't he always pitied him? Hadn't he often wondered himself what would have happened if he had been sorted into Slytherin too? Would they have been friends rather than enemies? The pair to rival James and Sirius perhaps?  
  
Maybe not. But there was more to it than just wearing a badge and a facial expression. Lupin had been cared for, Snape hadn't. THAT was the difference, he was sure.  
  
And saying that, did HE care about Snape?  
  
He sighed, snapping himself out of his reverie. Sirius would have killed him for admitting it, but yes, he did. He cared about Snape.  
  
Opposite him, Snape stood, still quivering in silent rage.  
  
Lupin tightened his hold on the doorframe. He had always cared too much for his own good. Always let people walk over him more than he should, thinking he was being a better friend by letting them have their way. But after Sirius, he now knew this was not always the right thing to do. Caring meant doing too. And Merlin be damned if he was going to give up on the people that were left!  
  
Lupin steeled himself. What he was about to say sounded so ridiculous, almost pathetic. But-  
  
'Severus. Will you stay if I show you the library?'  
  
*******  
  
The dormitory was stifling, the blankets heavy, the sheets constricting like a snake. Finally, the first shades of dawn began to creep over the horizon. It would be enough light to see by.  
  
Edging himself slowly out of bed, so as not to wake his snoring dorm-mates, Harry made sure to cast a quick silencing charm, before picking up his shoes and crossing to the door.  
  
His first thoughts were of the lake, but as he reached the door he paused.  
  
What if he changed his mind? Should he take the invisibility cloak, in case he wanted to go elsewhere?  
  
Elsewhere where?  
  
Subconsciously he knew exactly where, but his conscious mind would have none of it.  
  
It was with this state of mind that he tiptoed down the spiral staircases, out of the portrait and down the dully lit corridors. Alone.  
  
Or maybe not.  
  
As Harry had spoken the password to the portrait, he had neglected to acknowledge it. Failed to notice that although all the surrounding portraits were snoring, the Common Room Entrance portrait was completely silent.  
  
In fact, to most passing viewers the picture would appear empty, save a chair and a drape. Not for the first time along the years, the Fat Lady was gone.  
  
As Harry's cautious footsteps rounded the corner, a low chuckle cut through the corridor.  
  
'Mother's eyes. Ah, a Mother's eyes,' hissed the tone. 'The unnatural lengths taken to protect a blood brood-'  
  
'But we shall see, my friend. We shall see.' 


	14. Walking these Vicious Circles

CHAPTER 14 – Walking these Vicious Circles  
  
The carriage clock ticked away softly, the shiny mechanism rotating relentlessly, back and forth, back and forth, sending small gold reflections twisting across the mantelpiece wall. On the tarnished mahogany dining table, the one and a half glasses of Riesling had been long forgotten.  
  
Pale brown eyes watched enraged black ones, stubborn lips set toward sneering ones.  
  
In one moment the battle of wills had sparked into life. But it was the next few moments that were the most crucial. Lupin knew this, and this was why he was gripping the doorframe so hard.  
  
With any other person it would be a bad approach to block their exit from a room – but with Snape extra force and effort was needed, it would be a furious struggle all the way.  
  
Snape blinked several times, as if he couldn't believe what he was hearing. "What?"  
  
The other took a resolute breath. "The Black family library – Siri – it used to be kept locked. Would you like to see it?"  
  
Lupin had to try his hardest to remove all uncertainty from his voice. Oh, if only he could get Snape to trust him! Get that sneer of mistrust to curve into a smile – just once. Once would be enough.  
  
But like too many other wizards - would Snape ever dare to trust someone who grew claws once a month? Especially someone linked with one of the darkest periods of his life. Was it that improbable?  
  
Lupin rallied under the intensity of the wizard's hateful glare - the like of which would have probably petrified an entire potions class several times over – and held it with calm determination, he had neither managed or felt before. Yes, he understood Snape's hatred of him, even admired him for it – it was brave to face a werewolf and tell him so. Too many other wizards had shown their prejudice more subtly, sacked him behind his back, too afraid to do it to his face.  
  
Lupin was used to smelling deceit about people, and Merlin, was he sick of that scent! Meaningless chitchat that always circled the problem, never approached it. The next sly thing up from lies was avoiding the questions altogether. Just like they were afraid to confront the wolf.  
  
He sighed. What he really wanted right now was a half decent conversation that gave him the answers.

* * *

After his maddened outburst it took almost all of Snape's willpower to calm him and gain control of his breathing – but he managed it. Though, to his great annoyance the wizard found he hadn't done enough to prevent an adrenaline overload.  
  
Try as he might he just couldn't stop his wand hand from quivering uncontrollably. The resulting "weakness" plain and visible for all to see only made him crazier. And the crazier he looked, the more the Werewolf was likely to pity him.  
  
Once again the Marauders had made him lose hold of the skill he prided in – self control. And once again Lupin watched him calmly. To see the mild- mannered wizard still in control of his made Snape's blood sear with fresh hatred. In all the years he'd known him Snape never once saw Lupin loose his temper, and it was this that Snape couldn't stand.  
  
"How dare you," hissed Snape, his expression a frightening mask. His cold eyes like little black beads, bored through Lupin – as if searching for explanation yet thwarted at finding none. "How dare you?"  
  
A floorboard creaked slightly as Lupin shifted his stance. Dawn was rapidly greying up the dining room windowpanes, the faint trills of London birdsong distinctly audible outside in the street. The carriage clock ticked another minute past.  
  
Ten seconds. Twenty. Snape snarled anew, threatened anew, ordered the grim faced Lupin to step aside. Yet still Lupin stood.  
  
Maybe it was desperation due to losing all the friends he had ever had in his bleak, lonely life. Maybe it was a heroically reckless Gryffindor stint, or maybe it was even that he really was the "loony" classmates always said he was – Lupin had long ceased to care. He hadn't even been bothered to shave since Sirius died, his unkempt sandy hair brushed against his collar, his scruffy beard now half grizzled with white hairs. He had put on the rumpled old grey tunic shirt he was wearing well over a week ago, the two he had worn previous weeks were still crumpled up on the floor upstairs.  
  
What did it matter? It wasn't as if cleanliness mattered for Order duties – which often involved long dull hours playing watchman, spying on lower ministry employees.  
  
It would be Lupin's fortieth birthday this year, but the Werewolf in him made it easily feel like it was his sixtieth.  
  
He had once carried the nagging feeling that he should feel grateful to reach such a landmark age; due to vigilante attacks most werewolves didn't live to be as old as he was. But on the flip side of the coin - what benefits were there really to be got by an aging werewolf in Wizarding society? Forbidden from having children, harried, ousted, marginalized, looked on with a guarded eye wherever he went. Due to his condition and lack of money his clothes growing worn and tatty, causing people to look upon him with disdain. Forever dreading discovery and outcry.  
  
And so it went on – this vicious monthly cycle, with the human trapped and helpless in its centre.  
  
Lupin was no dreamer. He had long accepted there was no cure, and he well knew that even after the defeat of He Who Must Not Be Named, he would still face prejudice - the distrust, and fear of Lycanthropes wouldn't die with one dark wizard. He had accepted this from a young age, and had therefore learned to appreciate what good things came along, with a much greater intensity than usual.  
  
But what he could not bear now was the loss of these good things. When he had had friends Lycanthropy had been tolerable.  
  
Now it was a curse.  
  
The Potions' Professor didn't want to see it as a curse - oh, no - he preferred to keep with his annoyingly old-fashioned notion that Lupin secretly enjoyed it. This bothered Lupin intensely; couldn't Snape see that he was in a similar position to a Werewolf? The Mark was as bad as a curse, a permanent fixture, a brand of service to evil, which would colour the majority of opinions against him for the rest of his life. Snape lived with the Mark like Lupin lived with the wolf, a half-life.  
  
It was a day-by-day test of patience and tolerance, skulking about like this in the shadows. Your past still blotting through your future, unforgettable, unchangeable.  
  
And like Snape, Lupin had undeniably found protection from Dumbledore. But Dumbledore was not really a friend to either of them. He was a good and wise ally, a safe bolthole for the ousted "creatures," but no friend.  
  
True, Snape was a great survivor, a solitary pillar of power. But he had grown far too embittered and rigid the past few years - to survive this new war he would need to change. For this war would be a merciless earthquake that would especially delight in toppling the proud, solitary pillars who refused support.  
  
Lupin didn't want this proud solitary pillar to fall, he wanted him to change. He had accepted this challenge even though it would be long and painful and full of rage.  
  
But would it be full of misunderstandings?  
  
This was this undecided question that Lupin had made his decision on. Lupin had long held a theory that Snape - deep down underneath all his impossible stubborn bastardness understood only too well. He also believed this understanding between them, went both ways, especially when it came to their shared fascination for books.  
  
Maybe Lupin was insane to hope he could be on good terms with Snape one day; but at least he wasn't naïve - he knew that pain and rage would likely come first. And knowing this, Lupin was more than prepared for it, even if he didn't wholly deserve it.  
  
"Right, if this is the way you want it Lupin," muttered Snape quietly, barely concealing his fury behind balanced tones. He straightened his wand arm to full lock, pressed his lips together, and with one glint of malicious eye, took aim at the defiant man's leg.  
  
"If this is the way you want it to be – so be it. _Vulnero viscous_."  
  
The curse exploded from Snape's wand, splitting into multiple shards of lightning white in midair, before ripping scores of deep gashes down both sides of Lupin's right leg.  
  
Lupin let out a terrible moan and leant into the doorframe. Black spots swam before his eyes, while muscles spasmed in pain. He fought hard to prevent his knees buckling with the shock. In his fierce determination not to black out, he gripped the doorframe so tightly that the very ends of his fingers turned white.  
  
Calming himself, Lupin met the eyes of his injurer once again. Was it simply him, or had Snape's eyes shown a glimmer of remorse just then?  
  
He had to believe it. He was determined to. He would try and fix the past if it killed him.  
  
Lupin appealed to him once again, his voice refusing to weaken, even in his suffering. The dark robed wizard must learn he wasn't the only stubborn git in the room.  
  
Snape's lip curled in mockery at the injured wizard's stubborn look. "Stop this, Lupin. I have no idea what you are trying to do – some vile attempt at Gryffindor bravery, or some exercise in spineless grovelling – either is offensive."  
  
"I'm listening to you," said Lupin.  
  
"Really?" leered Snape in his most mocking tone. "Why me? Your owner not paying you enough attention? Though I am utterly touched that the next available person with a backbone happens to be me, I just can't stand -"  
  
BANG!  
  
Though injured, Lupin was still surprisingly fast. He had broken away from the doorframe and closed the gap between them in a matter of mere seconds.  
  
Snape blinked repeatedly in shock, but couldn't swallow or make more than a small wheezing sound. For Remus Lupin had one hand gripped tightly round his throat.  
  
Though his brownish eyes shone brightly with years of pent up pain and frustration. Lupin's ragged face wore an expression closer to a sneer than it had ever done in his life.  
  
And as Snape staggered drunkenly backwards, trying desperately to claw off the hand with his own, he merely moved Lupin along with him – until finally the back of Snape's legs connected with the dining room table and they could go no further.  
  
Using all his strength and years of bottled frustration, Lupin used the advantage of surprise to force the other man to bend backwards over the table and loom over him. For once, Lupin gave his pent-up frustrations full rein.  
  
"Never," he ground out hoarsely, "have I grovelled to you Severus – you know this. I assure I never will. How is it possible to grovel to an equal? How?!" he croaked.  
  
Severus was visibly shocked to hear his fellow wizard rant in such a hoarse and emotional way. He could hear Lupin's heart too – too close - hammering angrily in his ears.  
  
Lupin let out a frustrated sound. "Now, I will repeat, and you listen this time; if you stay, I WILL show you the library. If you still don't trust me, all you have to do is say, and I WILL chain myself to something. You know when I keep my promises – I keep them!"  
  
Lupin's eyes shone with an intense anger no one had seen in them before. It was not wolfish anger – it was human.  
  
"My word is my word, upon my mother's life I swear it!"  
  
Only when he had growled out the last words did Lupin finally release his grip upon Snape's pallid neck, and draw back to watch the reaction.  
  
And being honest about it, Lupin had no idea what sort of reaction to expect.

* * *

The spring dawn was bright and fresh – Harry crept along the mossy paths at the sides of the Hogwarts gardens for well over an hour, walking in no particular direction. He stopped at the edge of a line of trees to contemplate the scene. A delicate white mist was hovering low over the lake, the other side of which jutted the high scaffolding and poles of the Quidditch pitch, beyond these lay more trees, and the faint greyish outline of distant hills.  
  
He sighed bitterly. It was like staring at a postcard; everything was so still and motionless. If only looking at this beautiful scene could make him feel peaceful. There were too many thoughts crammed into his head, all clamouring for a say, taking up great chunks of his sleep time. He was so weary. He could easily lay down and –  
  
No – he wouldn't go down that path again: his friends cared for him. He cared for them too, somehow. It didn't seem so at the moment, but he was sure he would care for them when it mattered. And it would matter soon, probably.  
  
He found his fingers lingering over a bush next to him. Unlike the others in the row it was dead, and without fresh buds. He selected a long twig, it cracked loudly as he snapped it off near the base. He stood there some time, engrossed with scratching off the bark, and twirling the twig absent- mindedly between his fingers.  
  
Once all the bark was gone Harry held the twig up to examine it. It was almost dead straight, tapering at one end – like a wand.  
  
Frowning slightly, Harry drew his own wand out of his pocket, and sat there some time comparing the two pieces of wood.  
  
Questions he had never thought of asking sprang to mind. How did they make wands? Was it only the core that made a wand a wand? Did a wizard really need a wand to cast spells?  
  
Even though he was pretty sure no one was within a quarter of a mile from his spot, Harry still glanced about him and listened intently before sliding his wand back into his pocket. He glanced around again to make doubly sure.  
  
Licking his lips, Harry narrowed his eyes slightly and aimed the pointed twig at the dead bush. "Inflammario."  
  
Nothing happened. Harry's eyes scanned the floor for a stone. "Wingardium leviosa," he whispered. The stone didn't budge a millimetre.  
  
This made him think. Could this happen? Imagine, just imagine if he could suddenly no longer do magic? That would screw up the wizarding world's hopes, wouldn't it? The Boy-Who-Lived Loses Magic Abilities! – the headlines would scream. There would be widescale panic, no doubt. He would be the gossip of the wizarding world – yet again. Like he will be when it comes to his last stand against Voldemort.  
  
Harry scraped the point of the twig against a tree and let his mouth curl into a half sneer. They would talk and gossip like always – call him by his familiar name even though they didn't even know him, like always, just like they don't know what it's like to live his life.

Merlin knows what everyone thought of his failure last year...  
  
Harry leant exhausted against the tree trunk, as he felt the darkness pressing down on him once more. He thought he felt okay a moment ago, but it was back again. The creeping shadows at the edge of his mind – trying to force their way in. Darker and darker...

So...what if he took the stick, and pointed it at his own head, and said Avada -

_No. _

_No. _

_Never. _

_NO!!_  
  
Horrified with his own thoughts, Harry quickly tried to block out the darkness by visualising the image of the candle flame Lupin had suggested to use when preparing for Occlumency. He had tried visualising a Snitch at first, but this only made him more alert, bringing forth more memories, which had then broken his concentration.  
  
He breathed in deeply, then out again, watching the candle flame flicker slightly in his head, visualising in particular the black heart of the flame, the darkness in the centre of the light – His breath came more and more slowly, his eyes only vaguely noticing the darkness creeping around the edges of the vision. He was so successful with his meditation that it was some time before he noticed a room had materialised around the candle.  
  
A dark, shadowy room. The candle a short, fat cream one in a stand, burning on a low table.  
  
There are hushed voices. There is also the sound of shallow breathing.  
  
The candle flame is still and unflickering, the weak light yellowish. There is a small movement to the right, it is a person almost completely in shadow, sat close by.  
  
Someone begins to whisper. It sounds like a small boy.  
  
"Mother, why did you tell me to blow all the candles out?"  
  
A soft female voice, speaks to reassure, yet sounds tense, "hush, not so loudly. So it looks as if we have gone away."  
  
"But," the boy pauses. "But why so it looks like we've gone away?"  
  
The female voice sighed quietly. "Do you remember I told you your father is poorly at the moment?"  
  
The boy sniffs, his voice raising slightly. "I know you did. But why does father have to be poorly? Why does he -?"  
  
The female voice shushes him for not whispering, before sighing again. "Because he does," she replies sadly. "People can't help being poorly – like father can't help being poorly."  
  
The boy makes a small whine in his throat. "But why do the candles have to go out? You know I don't like the dark."  
  
His mother huffs. "Don't be so silly! What have I told you about the dark?"  
  
"That it's my friend," says the boy in a very small voice.  
  
"That's right," she replies softly. "Your friend. And now it is being both our friends by hiding us. There is nothing sillier than fearing the dark. Don't you ever forget that."  
  
"No, mother," is the quiet reply.  
  
Harry's head jerked up. He blinked dazedly: the bright orange glow of the rising sun was shining full in his face. What sort of trance had he just been in, and for how long?  
  
Bringing his eyes back into focus he looked around – he could see woodsmoke curling up from the other side of the grounds – that meant Hagrid was up in his hut, and cooking himself breakfast, and it also meant it was about six o'clock in the morning. Filch was usually up at quarter to seven, so he had to sneak back to the dormitory before he was caught.  
  
Without thinking any further about it, Harry stuffed the twig he had been playing with in his pocket and set back toward the castle.  
  
Once inside, the quiet, empty entrance hall echoed with his soft footsteps, and once again Harry had the sense of being watched. Whether it was out of curiosity, or irritation, or both he didn't know, but the teenager chose to stop dead.  
  
The last of his footsteps echoed away, leaving only the silence.  
  
Harry felt his eyes wanting to move toward the darkness of the dungeon steps. Snape had never caught him out and about yet – Harry had a sort of smug pride about this. Maybe he could really rub it in and be daring by taking a casually defiant stroll down past the Slytherin quarters and especially Snape's office?  
  
He was halfway down the main dungeon corridor when he distinctly felt someone's breath brush across his neck.  
  
"So, I have caught you at last, _Mister Potter_," said the cold voice.  
  
Harry swung round sharply to see nothing. He turned back, bewildered.  
  
He heard a rustle and a flap of robes behind him, and swung round again. Nothing.  
  
The voice spoke again – immediately behind him. "No need to be afraid of the dark, Potter."  
  
Harry swallowed. "I'm not."  
  
The voice chuckled low in the throat. "Good. But of course, it is not the dark that needs fearing, is it - ?"  
  
Harry felt something cold touch the back of his neck. He steeled himself before whipping round to face the opposite direction once more.  
  
Nothing.  
  
"Who are you?" demanded Harry, beginning to inch his hand toward his wand pocket.  
  
"Or a slightly more crucial point," mused the voice, "Where are you?"  
  
"And that!" snarled the Teenager.  
  
"Temper, temper," came the cool reply. "The first question should be in the past tense. The second, if you consider the first's answer, is closer than you think."  
  
Harry began to curl his fingers around the end of his wand. "What?!"  
  
"Manners!" came the scathing hiss. "No manners, these young of today! Speak properly child!"  
  
Harry stifled the urge to snap back, and took a deep breath instead.  
  
Past tense –  
  
Ah, now he had it. _Who were you?_  
  
Was he talking to a painting?  
  
"You are correct, Mister Potter," came the sly tone.  
  
"H-How did you know that – I didn't even say it out loud!" challenged Harry.  
  
But he got no reply.  
  
Intrigued, Harry began to peer through the gloom into all the little alcoves and dingy false archways of the dungeon corridor he was in. There were actually some pictures in them - only dark looking landscapes – but why hadn't he noticed them before? Probably because he had always had more than several reasons to hurry out the dungeons.  
  
Finally, in the far corner. Harry stared, aghast at what was looking back at him.  
  
"Don't mind the idiotic family resemblance," leered the picture dryly. "I disowned the fool of a grandson who lives down these dungeons long ago."  
  
"Snape?" stuttered the teen.  
  
The dark-caped man in the portrait bowed formally, all smarmy grin and glittering eyes. "Desmodus Snape. A great pleasure to speak with the young Mister Potter at last."  
  
Harry blinked.

* * *

Snape let out a long, choking wheeze and shuddered, before finally allowing his body to collapse back with shock onto the table. It took several short hacking breaths before he was strong enough to move even slightly. Lupin watched as Snape managed to inch a hand up to feel his throat.  
  
Lupin noticed Snape's wand on the floor. Obviously he had dropped it in the struggle. He moved forward to pick it up, wincing slightly each step. With the adrenalin wearing off, Lupin's leg was beginning to throb more and more painfully.  
  
He picked up the wand, a rather heavy static-feeling one made from ebony wood, and gingerly placed it within easy reach of Snape's hand before limping back a distance.  
  
Dizzy from lack of oxygen, Snape rolled weakly over onto his side, trying not to retch as he did so. He could still smell Lupin's musty scent about him, and it brought back unwanted memories.  
  
And the other smell – well, he would try and ignore that for the moment, even though this meant trying to stifle that old urge to panic. Snape hated this other smell more than any other. Blood.  
  
Smelling blood reminded him of dark rooms and darker voices. Oh Merlin. Why was it always a race to try and bury the past before it buried him? Swallowing apprehensively, Snape opened his eyes to the scene.  
  
As Lupin stared back at him, Snape was thankful that his stare was still human. Well then, the scruffy man may have actually been right about this new approach to the wolf. But hadn't he known that himself already? Hadn't he deliberately challenged the man because he felt like it, just to get a perverse pleasure out of winding him up?  
  
Anyway, even if he had agreed – it would have been the start of a productive and intelligent conversation, and as much as Snape secretly wanted and valued these, his self-pride and bitterness held him back. And why? It was Lupin for blasted sakes!  
  
_Gryffindor Lupin. Weak Lupin -_  
  
Snape's eyes lingered on Lupin's leg. It was completely stained red and glistening with fresh blood. His gaze then flickered over the footprints on the floor. Footprints of fresh blood were staining the floorboards black. He blinked, averting his eyes.  
  
Human blood. It was especially difficult to scrub off floorboards, it soaked into the wood like dye. And the sound drying blood made when it was walked on.  
  
_Oh Gods_ -  
  
Snape tightened his jaw and rolled over, effectively turning his back on the other wizard.  
  
Lupin watched Snape's reaction with surprise. No wonder Dumbledore defended him – a half-vampire, turning peaky at the mere sight of blood? Bizarre. What must his grandfather have made of him?  
  
Lupin winced as he felt a jolt of pain go through his leg. It felt pretty serious, and being the result of a Vulnero viscous hex, it would have been if he were human.  
  
Snape sat up slowly and grasped his wand. "I think I will return to Hogwarts now, Lupin," he muttered hoarsely.  
  
Lupin looked down at the floor and sighed, before stepping away from the exit.  
  
Snape got up, and strode awkwardly to the door, his eyes completely avoiding the bloody scene. At the doorway however, he paused a moment.  
  
Lupin was convinced Snape was just about to say something half-decent for once, but then another wave of nausea seemed to hit – causing him to turn pale again.  
  
"I have to go," was his abrupt reply. The footsteps were brisk - the front door of Twelve Grimmauld Place slammed -  
  
"BLOOD TRAITORS!" came the hellish shriek. "DISRESPECTING THE PURE BLOOD OF MY FAMILY LINE! BUTCHERING MY LOYAL SERVANTS! OUT – OUT OF MY HOUSE! VILE REVOLTING HALFBLOOD CREATURES – VILE-"  
  
It took all Lupin's strength this time to limp out into the hallway and wrench Mrs Black's curtains shut.


	15. A Question of Timing

**Chapter Fifteen**

**A Question of Timing**

"You're Snape's grandfather?" replied Harry in astonishment.

Desmodus inclined his head slightly, his eyes glinting. "Unfortunately, yes. But I also did have the honour of knowing your father and his friends quite well, Mister Potter-"

"Hated them too, did you?" cut in Harry sarcastically.

"Actually no...." Desmodus raised a quizzical eyebrow. "Why in Varney's name should I object to someone teaching my deranged grandson a few home truths about himself?

The teenager blinked, startled. "Er...well, I just thought that you would-"

"Agree with my deranged grandson? After five years of tolerating his idiosyncrasies you should agree with me more than anyone, Mister Potter; why should I presume sons take after their fathers, or even grandsons after their grandfathers, for that matter? Surely someone who asserts such a thing is arrogant himself?"

Harry took a careful look at the portrait before he finally snorted in agreement, "He believes it all right. He calls me arrogant...but I suppose their hating each other makes sense if my dad was as well. Mum said my dad and Snape were as bad as each other."

Desmodus gave a slow smile. "Maybe, maybe. You are fair, but don't be so hasty as to judge your father from one bad memory. Your mother never saw the half of the dark deeds my grandson did, she hardly knew him. I, however, watched him grow up. James Potter was a touch arrogant, yes, but merely mischievous in comparison to the miserable wretch of a creature Severus was, and still is."

The teenager listened avidly, but a frown was gathering above his eyes. It all seemed too good to be true, really. After all, this was a member of Snape's family he was talking to – could he trust him?

_But a Snape who liked your father..._ whispered back a voice. _A Snape who is actually capable of decent conversation...a Snape who hears your questions, and might just tell you some answers..._

It was too tempting. Harry looked up and down the corridors listening intently; he had to keep an eye out, he didn't want to get caught, particularly as he didn't have the Marauders' Map or his cloak on him. Finally, heart hammering a little, he returned his gaze to the portrait,

"So...the memory I saw in Occlumency, he was a small boy, I saw a row between his parents, and him crying in the corner - what happened there?" enquired Harry carefully.

"Ah, you could not have picked a better memory," responded Desmodus in a chilling tone that made Harry's eyes widen a little. "But first I need to give you some background history. Severus was a hellish and undisciplined child, his parents continual spoiling was the ruin of him, I fear. It wasn't uncommon for young Severus to sneak into my library and take my books. I would not have minded so much, _if_ he had treated them properly, but he had the tendency to scrawl on them and tear pages out." Desmodus paused and narrowed his eyes malevolently. "Unfortunately my daughter-in-law was blind, so he turned this to his advantage; learning to creep around silently and cause mischief which she could never detect."

"Blind? Was she blind from birth?" asked Harry, surprised.

"No – from her early twenties, two years after her marriage to my son, unfortunately," returned the portrait. His mouth twisted slightly. "Though Incisia coped pretty well without sight, some things could and did evade her, particularly when they concerned her only son. She doted on him utterly, and in return he behaved impeccably in front of her, so ensuring she would never believe me when I said he'd _misbehaved._"

Harry felt his spine tingle at the amount of stress Desmodus had placed on his last word. And by his slight pause and the glint in his eye it seemed clear the man was expecting him to ask about it...again he couldn't resist...

"What sort of things do you mean by misbehaved?"

Desmodus looked across at the teenager, sparing him a wry smile in reward for his full and undivided attention. But inwardly he sneered; the boy was entranced – sucked in by the slightest gossip.

_Gryffindors and their lack of subtlety..._

"Well, as you are asking.... One day I returned home early without announcement. Walking into my library I immediately noticed an old volume from the top shelf was missing – one of my father's awful cursed books. It was such a dark volume that I had held it in place by permanent fixing charm. I don't know how he did it, but that day Severus had somehow managed to break the charm, get it down and open it. And inspecting it afterwards, worse discoveries followed; I realised it likely wasn't the first time the boy had had the book down..."

"So – what happened?" whispered Harry, green eyes hungry with anticipation.

The man in the portrait's mood darkened, his voice becoming quieter and deadlier. "Well...I searched the house for the brat, of course. Finally, I found him in the cellar, but by that time he was already chanting, and I only realised what he was actually experimenting on when it was too late to stop him -"

"What-"

Desmodus pulled out a handkerchief from a robe pocket and dabbed it slowly over his face, pausing dramatically over his mouth. It was clear he was relishing the attention.

"Maligo. His father's...my son's Owl."

Harry grew hawk-eyed, hardly believing what he was hearing. "So he-"

Desmodus lowered the handkerchief and stared directly into the teenager's face. "Well, what do you think, my boy?" he whispered, eyes gleaming eerily. "Would you be shocked if I told you he ripped the bird to pieces with one-"

"POTTER! What are you doing out of your dormitory this early in the morning?"

The teen started and swang round to face the direction the snapped words had come from – the brightness of the morning sun splashing into the entrance hall sharply framed the shadowy figure of a man standing at the top of the dungeon stairs.

Harry felt a twinge of horror and backed off slightly as the malevolent figure began to descend down the steps, not taking his angry eyes off him for one moment,

"And without the usual excuse?" continued the cold voice. "Well, for once, Potter, I think I might quite enjoy hearing what your head of House has to say about your loitering about my dungeons..."

"Oh come, come, Severus; we were only having a _civilised discussion..._"

At this voice Snape abruptly stopped rigid in his tracks.

Desmodus raised an eyebrow and looked his grandson up and down in surprise.

"My, my; Severus, you have _blood_ on you."

Snape turned his head slowly stared back unblinking for a moment, before comprehending his grandfather's words. Understanding them, he looked down at his robes in gathering horror. It was true – there on his travelling cloak were several patches of something dark and glistening. He lifted his arms slightly; his cuffs and sleeves, too were stained with several red blotches.

Snape looked up to find Harry's eyes boring into him.

* * *

Hermione had been restless most of the night; the Mock NEWTS were in a few weeks and her mind was weary with worry. Her dorm mates were getting increasingly annoyed with her constantly reciting dates, places and potion ingredients, and according to Lavender Brown she was even doing it in her sleep.

She turned for the umpteenth time and opened her eyes, to see the brightness of the sun peeping through the curtains.

"Oh good," she commented to herself. "It's finally light!"

Quietly easing herself up in bed in some sort of effort not to wake her grumpy dorm mates, she reached over into her bedside cabinet and pulled out a huge stack of revision notes so she could revise in bed. Straining slightly with the weight, she didn't notice a slight bulge developing halfway down the pile until it was too late. Before she could put out a hand though, the stack seemed to explode sideways, sending a wave of paper sliding and skidding all over the floor between the beds...

Hermione waited stock-still with bated breath, but just as she was about to breathe a quiet sigh of relief several low moans came from the other Four-Posters.

"Oh Hermione!"

"Merlins' beard! What's the matter with you...at what time in the morning?"

"Sorry," Hermione whispered, and biting her lip, she quietly bent down to whisper a collation charm.

She tried to revise for a few moments, but found it impossible to do it without muttering to herself. Finally, after several more snorts were thrown in her direction, she finally got the hint and decided it would be best if she moved into the Common Room. Quietly dressing herself, she took a tight grip on her notes and began the careful tiptoe downstairs.

Once there she began her usual note sorting routine. She revised Transfiguration yesterday morning, so today she would start with Potions...She divided the stack up into colours and pulled the Potion notes toward her.

The first line that hit her was "One quart of bat's blood. Blood reference B684-71" She frowned as she noted that she had seemed to have hastily scribbled the word Vampire in the margins next to it. Why would she scribble anything in the margins of her neat notes? And besides, the Potion required blood from the Pipstrelle bat, not the vampire bat!

There was a slight shuffling from behind, and Hermione turned to see Ron, already dressed in his Quidditch gear.

"Hi Ron,"

"Morning," Ron yawned widely. "Seen Harry?"

Hermione looked up from her notes. "No, why?"

"Early Quidditch practice. I warned him about it a few days ago, but he just grunted at me."

"Oh," she replied, half-disinterestedly. "Maybe he wanted to revise – there are exams coming up, you know."

Ron snorted, turned and began to walk sulkily toward the portrait hole. "Right. He's not in the dorms, and he's not down here. Unless he takes his notes into the toilet with him, but I'd hardly think he'd do that! I wish he'd bloody tell me where he creeps off to!"

Hermione stared at Ron's retreating figure for a few seconds before looking back down at her notes, and then something finally clicked.

"Ron – do you know if Harry's taken his invisibility cloak out?"

Ron paused by the portrait. "How would I know?" he retorted.

Her voice hid a growing excitement. "Could you go and check, please, and if it's still there do you think he'd mind if I borrowed it? I think I finally know where the answer to Harry's question is in the library."

"But it doesn't open until nine!" he exclaimed. "Hermione, you've been in that library for days looking for that answer, you even skip meals. You'll burn yourself out."

"And since when have you been so concerned about my well-being?" she snapped back defensively.

"Okay, okay," resigned Ron hotly, dropping his Quidditch gear and storming forwards. "I'll go and get you the flipping cloak. But - if Harry comes back in and catches me at it I'll tell him exactly whose idea it was."

"Well, that sounds fair enough to me," she sniffed back.

* * *

Snape felt the breath hitch in his throat. _How could I be so careless – why didn't I smell it?_

Harry stared closely at the shining bloodstains on his Potion's Professor robes, before looking quizzically back at the portrait. Despite the younger man's eyes narrowing still further, Harry could see from his pallor he was still pretty shocked. A sneer rapidly began to curl Desmodus' lip.

"Did you get your revenge for his earlier mockery of you, Severus?" hissed the portrait quietly.

"Though I imagine it was hardly pleasant, your cold-hearted cruelty is shockingly wanton at times I must say. A dark curse, perhaps...? Ah, but I always thought with your knowledge you would have used silver. Silver would have left the wolf with far more painful wounds...it would have been far more effective for satisfying torture - it will teach him a sound lesson for even suggesting a deal -"

"WILL YOU SHUT UP!?" snarled Snape suddenly, his face contorting.

_Torture?_ Harry felt himself go rigid with horror, it felt as if someone had just stabbed an icicle through his heart.

_He tortured Lupin..._

The portrait smiled chillingly. "A witty return, Severus; or should I say a telling one?"

Snape's blood boiled as he swang back around to the teen. "Potter, behind me, now!"

Harry stared back numb and confused. Dumbledore had told him that Snape's blood potion had kept him alive when he should have died. But Dumbledore wasn't a God and didn't know everything. For the good of the wizarding world - what good had being alive done him? Eleven years with nasty Muggles. Voldemort had risen again through his blood to terrorise everyone again. _People had died....people were living in terror..._

Harry looked back at Snape then and felt at that moment he could believe he saw nothing but cruelty, horror and darkness in his eyes.

Five and a half years of hatred and, suspicion, and now finally he actually seemed to have damning evidence against his cruellest bully.

"POTTER – GET AWAY FROM THAT PORTRAIT - NOW!"

_Lupin was hurt. Snape hurt him._

The horror that had previously gripped Harry's insides, was slowly melding into a silent more dangerous creature, that of anger. A protective anger that did not know reason, nor care for it anymore. Why should he be yelled at like that? Instinctively, Harry felt himself curl his fingers around the handle of his wand.

_No one hurt the people he cared about and got away with it. No-one. _

Harry took in a single hot breath, only to breathe it out in chilling words. "What did you do to him, Snape?" He could feel his heart thudding madly behind his ribcage as he spoke.

"_What did you do to Moony_?"

Snape felt an odd chill run down his back. How ironic those words were; he recalled James Potter looking and sounding exactly the same – back in fourth year – before the fight between Wilkes and Potter started outside the Transfiguration classroom.

"Can't you see he's using you, Potter?" hissed Snape. "He's preying on you, twisting your emotions to his advantage. Don't listen to him!"

"Even if he is, how do I know you aren't doing the same, Snape?" spat back Harry, rounding on his Professor. "You've always told me I'm like my father, so why shouldn't you be like yours?"

"Well..." mused Desmodus slyly. "I can't say Ictus exactly shared his son's passion for interrogation and torturing...but..."

Harry's temper was being stoked hotter and hotter with every whispered comment, and now he fairly shook where he stood. Ready to explode.

"He has been feeding you lies Potter," hissed Snape defensively. "He twists the truth to his advantage, not yours!"

The boy looked back, green eyes afire. "But that's Lupin's blood, isn't it?"

Snape stiffened. "Lupin's fine. We had an argument, Potter, that's all, none of your business!"

"So you _did _hurt him?" whispered back the boy.

Snape scowled, but made no reply – he hardly felt like explaining, thus pouring all his emotions and fears out to a brattish teenage boy; so what was there to say?

Hearing as much as he wanted, Harry took a decisive step forward and shakingly drew his wand...

_He had to see if it was all true..._

"Harry!"

There was a clatter of shoes and Hermione suddenly came into view, her eyes widening at the scene before her. "I heard shouting. Harry, what-"

"Quiet Granger, and stay where you are!" hissed Snape.

Hermione stopped in her tracks and paled, watching the professor and student eye each other; one warily, one furiously.

There was a sudden movement. Snape had drawn his wand, but too late.

"LEGILIMENS!" roared Harry.

Snape braced himself to try and dodge the spell - but nothing happened.

Harry looked down at his wand and paled in horror as the realisation hit him. Not his wand – _just the stick..._

Snape saw the perfect chance and stepped forward swiftly, his wand high. "Legilimens!"

NO! Harry tried to put up a mental barrier but in his emotionally fired state it was too late. Snape broke into his memories in under a second. _All his most protected memories..._

..._Neville being tortured by Bellatrix Lestrange in the Ministry...Bellatrix screaming as he tried to torture her...his mother and father smiling back at him...Lupin clawed and bloodied in Dumbledore's office...Snape staring at him aghast in Potions as he transformed into the vampire...Snape sobbing, roaring and tipping over his desk in the dungeons..._

Harry saw Snape's eyes go wide with surprise and saw his ideal chance. He had no wand, so he needed to build up as much resistance as he could and force it out in one word.

"PROTEGO!"

Harry reeled as new images surrounded him. He was through into Snape's memories only for the third time ever. And at once he felt he recognised the gloom, it was that dark room yet again...

_One shadow lunged at the other – the horrible scream rang out...then cut short... _

"_MOTHER!" Someone shrieked, springing out from a corner of the room._

_The shadow fell limp into its hunter's arms._

_A wand quivered wildly with it's holder's nerves._ "_N-no! Solis Ortus_..._SOLIS ORTUS!"_

_The room was suddenly flooded with bright light. The creature hissed with rage and put its hands up to cover its face, letting go of the body so that it slumped to the floor. Snarling, the creature then backed off and fled into the darkness of the corridor... _

_The light showed the truth in stark detail. The boy's face crumpled as he dropped his wand and threw himself down at his mother's side ..._

Harry wanted to shut his eyes against the brightness of the awful scene, but it wouldn't have made any difference. What he wanted to believe and what he had to believe were fast beginning to polarise. He now knew the teenage boy here was also the same small boy who blew out the candles for his mother. The small boy who would have had a perfectly valid reason to fear the dark...

The small fearful boy who was to become his bitter Professor.

* * *

A/N – Finally – I updated. I'm so sorry to all my readers who have had to wait so inexcusably long – but I did have my doubts about this fic when JKR said there was no link between Snape and Vampires! But I suppose thinking about it rationally there's likely to be no SS/HG or Severitus either, but we still read and enjoy the fics!

Please review! ..._begs..._

Solis Ortus 'Sunrise' in Latin.


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